


Naked In The Dark

by TheComposer



Category: Original Work
Genre: Doctor/Patient, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:08:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 46,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28641249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheComposer/pseuds/TheComposer
Summary: A deranged doctor kidnaps his favorite online author of gore and smut in order to “improve her writing,” by giving her first hand experience with the things she writes about.
Relationships: Nathaniel Krieken/Rhiannon Conely
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	Naked In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This is the darkest thing I’ve ever written. Heed the warnings!

It all happened so fast.

She was quite soundly asleep when her front door was kicked in, and barely had time to register the sound and sit up before her bedroom door burst open. She would have screamed, if she’d been able to do so; the most she managed was a high, strangled sound of terror as she was manhandled out of her bed by two heavily armored men. A dull ache spread through her upper arms where they gripped her; she bruised easily, and knew she’d have marks already forming where their hands were.

She tried to protest as they cuffed her hands behind her—plastic zip ties, she’d noted, instead of metal handcuffs—and dragged her out of her house; her soft voice was lost in the sounds of their shouting, and they didn’t seem inclined to listen to her protests. There was snow on the bricks of her front stoop as she stumbled out into the night air, and her bare feet ached in the sudden cold; she barely had time to gasp in shock as the wind whipped her hair into her face and plastered her nightgown against her body before a black hood was yanked down over her head and she felt herself lifted up into what she could only assume was a truck.

She jerked and stiffened in shock what she was yanked backwards suddenly, letting out a sharp exhalation; she expected to fall over, and was surprised when she landed hard on what felt like a plastic seat instead. A seatbelt was buckled over her lap a moment later and yanked uncomfortably tight. She flattened herself back against the seat when she felt something—a hand, she assumed—brush across her upper thigh. 

She hadn’t struggled up until that point, mostly because the shock and fear had left her nearly paralyzed. That brief, light touch against her leg seemed to reanimate her, and she began to struggle in earnest. She jerked her wrists against the plastic that held them, trying to get her hands free; she felt dampness on her wrists a moment later as the truck lurched into motion, and she made a low, frightened sound that seemed to draw someone’s attention.

“Ah, shit. The stupid bitch managed to hurt herself; Krieken will kill us if she’s too messed up by the time we get there. Simon, put her out.” This last sentence got her attention, and she lifted her head towards the source of the words. A moment later, she felt the bottom edge of the hood lifted slightly and a gloved hand pushing her head to one side. She struggled, lifting her shoulders and tilting her head in the direction opposite the one the unseen assailant was trying to push it.

“Hold her still! She’ll snap the needle off in her neck if she’s squirming like this when I stick her!” The voice that spoke now was slightly higher than the first, and less muffled. She kicked out blindly with her left leg, and connected with what felt like someone’s shin. “Sonuvabitch! She kicks like a fucking mule,” the same voice snapped, from farther away.

“No! Don’t—“ she began, only to have her sentence abruptly ended when an arm encircled her upper body and squeezed, another hand jerking her head to the side and holding it firmly in place as what felt like someone’s leg pressed her own legs back against the seat, pinning her in place.

“Get the fuck over here and do it,” the first voice snarled from somewhere close to her ear. She whimpered in fright as the cold, gloved hands touched her throat again; this time, the sensation was followed by a tiny, stinging pain and a slowly spreading burn in her neck. A wave of dizzy weakness hit her a moment later, and she slumped against the man holding her still as she felt her body go limp. 

“You can let her go, now; she won’t be doing much of anything for the rest of the night,” Simon said, and she felt herself released. She drooped forward, held to her seat only by virtue of the belt across her hips. She still felt afraid, but the fear seemed to have receded to the back of her mind, leaving her feeling cold and empty. Tears dripped from her eyes, soaking the rough fabric of the hood covering her face.

“Jesus, how much of that did you give her?” The low voice sounded distorted, and it took her a moment to puzzle out the words. She would never hear the answer to that question, though, as she slipped into unconsciousness.

When she next awoke, it was to a slight pain in her shoulders and the gradual realization that she was being dragged. She felt snow under her feet again, the burning ache of the cold returning; she barely had time to make a sound of misery before she heard the sound of a door opening and felt an abrupt shift in temperature, realizing after a moment that she must have been brought indoors. There was slick tile under her feet, and she struggled to stand and walk properly for a moment before realizing that her limbs didn’t seem to want to respond; she gave up, then, allowing herself to be dragged without protest. 

Her head still swam, and she was shivering so hard her teeth had begun to chatter, and from the way the fabric of the hood clung damply to her face, it seemed she had been crying the entire time she had been asleep. She didn’t know how long that might have been, though, and she barely had time to worry before she heard another door open. 

There was a change in the temperature of the air once again, this time growing colder instead of warmer. She felt one of her wrists gripped tightly for a moment, and the plastic restraints were cut and pulled free a moment later. She thought briefly about lashing out at her captors, making a run for it…but to do that, she would have to be able to run, something which she really couldn’t do under the best of circumstances, and certainly not something she could manage when drugged to the gills. She was set down hard on what felt like a metal chair, and her hands were cuffed behind her back—and around the back of the chair—once again. The restraints weren’t plastic this time; they felt like the padded restraints occasionally used by hospitals, and that made her wonder where exactly she was. 

She heard the door open once again, admitting what sounded like a single person to the room. The hood was pulled off of her head a moment later, and she flinched at the bright, white light of the small, sterile room. She sat in front of a metal desk, with what she assumed were guards staring at her from across the room. She imagined that they were frowning, but of course she couldn’t see them at this distance. There was a third man in the room, quite tall and wearing what looked like a rather nice suit. She squinted, but that made her feel dizzy and slightly nauseous; she gave up after a moment, drooping in her chair and wondering if she was going to pass out once again. She was dragged out of her thoughts by a man’s voice.

“Rhiannon Colleen Conley. Or, perhaps I should call you the Composer?” She felt her blood turn to ice at this statement, and lifted her head quickly enough that her stomach lurched uncomfortably into her throat at the sudden wave of vertigo that followed. “I went through a lot of effort to find you, you know. You don’t have much of a presence online. No Facebook, no Twitter…nothing, really. Just an e-mail address without your full name.” She tried to focus on the man who was speaking, but the drug in her system—whatever it was—prevented her from truly focusing on what he was saying. His words slipped across her mind like oil, and she let her head loll forwards after a moment, ignoring him as he continued to speak. 

She was startled to feel a hand on her chin a moment later, lifting her head until she was looking up at him once more. He brushed her hair out of her face with his free hand, tucking it behind her ear once again. His features were still fuzzy, even this close, but she could see a bit more of him; under any other circumstance, she would have found him attractive, with his carefully combed black hair and grey eyes the color of a winter sky. His skin was almost as pale as her own, and she thought vaguely of vampires for a moment before he touched her face again, stroking her cheek this time.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, earnestly, smiling at her, baring his teeth in a white smear across his face. “I’m your Polish friend, Aleksander,” he said, with the same expression and tone. “Of course, I’m not Polish and my name’s not Aleksander, but that’s what you know me as. Unlike you, I don’t give out my real name to people I meet on the internet. But, now that we have met in person, I suppose I shall properly introduce myself. I…” he pronounced, with no small amount of relish, “…am Dr. Nathaniel Krieken.” She blinked at him a few times, wishing desperately for a clear head and finding that it was very hard to muster up the appropriate amount of fear through the thick haze caused by the sedative. 

“You’re not with the government,” she rasped, finally, wincing slightly at the dryness in her throat and the way her tongue seemed too large for her mouth. Her words slurred and ran together, but it seemed that the man in front of her was able to understand her well enough; he broke out laughing after a moment of silence, his hand cupping her cheek for an instant before he struck her, hard, with the same hand.

“Of course I’m not. Do try to keep up; you’re drugged, not stupid,” he said, and she flinched more from his tone than his slap. “I’m merely…an adoring fan. You see,” he continued, settling himself on the desk and facing her, his arms folding neatly over his chest, “…I do love your writing. It’s…truly magnificent. But I feel it suffers in places from your lack of experience with certain things, don’t you agree?” She felt her mental gears grinding as she fought through her drug-induced daze, struggling to put all the pieces together. “After all, Mark Twain told us to write what we know. And you have been complaining about writer’s block of late, so I thought that, perhaps, I could give you something to write about.” His smile flashed in the dim light, a white smudge across his face—and it clicked. She realized, in a moment of stunning, terrifying clarity what he intended to do, and she was dimly aware of a roar building in her ears.

“Oh,” she breathed, softly, her mind reeling. And then her head dropped forward onto her chest, and darkness took her. 

When she woke up, she was cold, aching, and very confused. The room she now occupied was similar to the other one, though larger. It was a bright, sterile place; the walls were a smooth, glossy white, and the floors were an equally bright white tile. There was a stainless-steel cart to her left, draped with a white sheet, and the table that she was on was made of the same smooth metal—she tried to sit up, and found herself securely strapped down with the same padded medical restraints that had held her to the chair. The clink of metal on metal when she tried to move suggested that they weren’t part of the table, but there was no give in them that suggested she could escape. 

As she craned her neck to look down at herself, she discovered that she was no longer in her nightgown, and was instead wearing what looked—from what little she could see—like some sort of hospital gown. Her legs were spread wide enough that she could feel the cold air of the room against her inner thighs and—from the way things felt—it seemed that her panties had been removed while she slept. She felt heat rise in her face, and she fought to close her legs for a moment before she gave up and drooped against the table once again.

Fear settled in her gut like a lump of lead as she continued her examination of the room as best she could from where she was; it smelled strongly of alcohol antiseptic, mingling with the distant chill of peppermint. Beneath those scents, there were the harsh chemical smells of floor cleaner and antibacterial soap—the combined effect was strong enough to make her eyes water. Her head was beginning to hurt, and she tried to breathe through her mouth to block out some of the smell. 

The air was cold, though not quite cold enough to induce shivering; it merely left her uncomfortable and forced the lingering effects of the sedative to fade much more quickly than she judged was normal. She struggled to control her breathing, swallowing hard every now and then as she waited for some sign that she wasn’t simply going to be left there to rot; she didn’t think her kidnapper would do that, but she truly knew nothing about him.

Just when she was about to start speaking to the empty room in the hopes of being heard, she heard a door open somewhere back behind her head, out of her view. The sound of boots clicking on the tile floor was the next thing she heard, and for a moment, she squeezed her eyes shut with the childish rationalization that if she couldn’t see it, it wasn’t there.

The hand that grasped her face and turned her head told her that idea was absolutely untrue.

She opened her eyes, trying not to show just how panicked she was as she met the looming doctor’s gaze. He wore a white lab coat over his clothing now, and as he smiled, and she felt a peculiar down-elevator sensation in the pit of her stomach. This was accompanied by the sudden, surprisingly detached realization that she was probably about to die. 

“Hello again, Rhiannon. Do you mind if I call you that? It suits you better than Colleen, I think,” he mused, smiling down at her, his hand still cupped around her cheek. His thumb slipped across her lips, and she felt the right corner of her mouth begin to twitch as tears filled her eyes. She cursed herself for this, and tried to clear her throat to prevent herself from crying; unfortunately, that was among the many sounds she had never been able to produce, and she ended up making a strangled, coughing sound as her body jerked in a poorly-repressed sob.

“P…please let me go,” she forced out, looking up at Nathaniel and feeling her expression crumple into something tense and ugly. “I swear I’ll do whatever you want, and I won’t tell a soul about this. I promise! Please.” The very slight Southern accent that she’d worked so hard to keep out of her speech crept in, making her tear-thickened voice even harder to understand. The doctor looked contemplative for a moment, leaning down over her until she could see his face clearly. 

“All right,” he pronounced, carefully, and her eyes flew wide. She hadn’t really expected him to listen to her pleas, not after all the effort he went through to get her here. He sent men to kidnap her in the middle of the night, and now he was going to let her go? She gaped at him in slack-jawed confusion for a moment before he spoke again. “I’ll let you go right now, on one condition.” Her stomach clenched painfully, and adrenalin shot through her like lightening; whatever he was about to ask couldn’t be good, she reasoned. “You must scream for me, first.”

“Th…that’s not fair!” she protested, softly, feeling her face twist in misery once again. “You…you’ve talked with me, you kn-know I can’t scream, I told you I can’t!” She chewed on her lower lip, shredding the dry, cracking skin between her teeth as she began to cry in earnest. The doctor looked back at her with the same pleasant, mild sort of grin, stroking her cheek as he waited. She struggled with herself for a moment, trying to muster up the courage to attempt something she had truly never done in her life.

“I’ll give you three tries. Does that seem more fair to you? Good!” he said, not waiting for an answer, the smile never leaving his face. She took in a deep, slow breath, then opened her mouth and—nothing. She sounded like she was choking for a moment before she closed her mouth. “That’s one,” Krieken sing-songed, beaming. She hesitated for a long moment, her heart hammering in her ribs, and then tried again. She coughed out a thin, short cry that approached the level of a normal expression of displeasure. The doctor sighed, smirking slightly and shaking his head. 

“That’s two. One more try, Rhiannon.” She took in a quick, deep gasp, and made her final attempt. This time she managed a high, sharp sound that was the closest she’d ever gotten to a scream; still, it was little more than a mild exclamation. She sagged against the table, closing her eyes as her shoulders jerked in a sudden sob. “Three, and that’s it, I’m afraid. It was a good try, though,” he said, his tone earnest. “Open your eyes.” She opened them after a moment, to find him still smiling down at her. She choked on another sob, squirming on the table and pulling at the cuffs that wrapped her wrists and ankles. “Good. Now, then, I’m not going to cause you any physical pain today, so you don’t need to be so frightened of me.” 

Somehow that wasn’t at all comforting, especially with the stress he put on the word physical. She shifted and struggled again, only to have him set a restraining hand against her chest. The tips of his fingers touched the hollow of her throat, and she swallowed convulsively and went still, looking up at him with wide eyes. He stared back at her for a long moment, until she finally averted her gaze, staring instead at the first button on his shirt. He patted her shoulder gently, once, then moved to undo the tie that held her hospital gown shut before opening it carefully, exposing her bare skin to the cold air of the room. She flushed, blinking back tears, when he set his hand on her belly, fingers splayed.

“I just need you to relax. This isn’t going to hurt; indeed, you might enjoy it,” he said, and she saw the white smudge of his smile reappear on his face. “I’m only going to talk to you a bit while I touch you, with my hands and…perhaps a few of my instruments.” She shuddered as he spoke, turning her head away to stare at the blank, white wall on the other side of the table. She felt his hand leave her belly, and heard him walk a few steps away; a moment later, she heard the sound of him putting on a pair of latex gloves. She bit her lip, hard, finally looking towards him again when he walked back to her and sat down at the head of the table in chair that she hadn’t known was there. 

“All right. The first thing I’m going to do is blindfold you,” he said, softly, and she felt her guts twist in sudden fright. Her sight might have been bad enough that being blindfolded would make little difference, but it would still be disconcerting not to be able to see him moving around. He lifted a roll of white bandages into her view a moment later, beginning to unroll the soft material as she watched, her heart speeding up. He paused, then, letting out a short, sudden laugh as he set the bandages beside her on the table. 

“Ah, you will have to forgive me; I almost forgot a few very important things,” he said, his tone apologetic as he rose and moved out of her view behind her head a moment later. She heard the sound of something with wheels being moved, and a moment later he stood at her other side, between her and the wall. He slid something onto the tip of her middle finger, securing it with a bit of medical tape; she recognized it after a moment as the device used in hospitals to monitor heart rate and blood oxygenation levels. 

She heard the machine it was attached to begin to emit the familiar, steady beeping a moment later; she had been in enough hospitals to know from the sound that her heart was a bit fast. Next, he wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm, and it immediately began to inflate, squeezing tightly; she knew she would have thin lines of bruises where it pressed into her skin, and she wondered vaguely what he would think of that. It deflated a moment later with a quiet beep as the machine it was attached to displayed its findings.

“There, now; much better! I’ll be able to see how you respond to some of these tests,” he said, and she looked up at him, terrified, as he leaned down over her with a smile. He sat back down a moment later, picking up the roll of bandages again and moving to wrap them across her eyes. She let out an involuntary, frightened sound, tensing up.

“P…please, don’t—” she began, breaking off abruptly when he gently pressed one end of the bandage against her temple and drew the cloth across her eyes. She could still see the bright light of the room through the fabric, but that changed as he carefully wrapped the bandage around her head and then across her eyes for a second time, and then a third; by the time he was finished, her world was completely dark, her eyes held shut by the firm press of the bandages across them. She stiffened, biting her lip when she heard a pair of scissors opening and closing near her ear a few times, and the accompanying jump in the speed of the heart monitor’s beeping. He chuckled, clearly amused, and to her relief all he did was cut the end of the bandage free from the roll. She heard him set the scissors aside, then, and flinched slightly when his fingers smoothed the cut end of the bandage down against her temple a moment later.

“You see? It’s not so bad,” he murmured, softly, his gloved fingertips tracing the line of the bandage where it ran across her cheek. She shivered when his other hand curled over her throat, pressing lightly, holding her head still against the table; she heard him lean in closer, and felt his breath hot against her ear a moment later. “Your heart is racing, Rhiannon. There’s no need to be so afraid.” He paused, and she felt another shudder creep down her spine as his fingertips slid up to trace the curve of her ear. “Now, I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you need to answer me honestly. I’ll know if you’re lying,” he continued, and she could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

He paused again, and the pressure of his hand on her neck increased slightly; it was almost uncomfortable, now. It didn’t restrict her breathing just yet, but the threat was clear; she swallowed hard, feeling the movement of her throat force his hand to shift slightly. He released his grip a moment later, his other hand sliding down to join that one, his fingers stroking her throat lightly. Goosebumps rose on her arms in response to the gentle touch, and she bit her lip as he leaned forward to whisper in her ear once again.

“You’re very beautiful like this, you know. You look…delicate. Almost fragile,” he murmured, and she tensed slightly when she felt one of his hands abandon her throat to toy with a strand of her hair instead. “Has anyone ever done this before? Bound you, left you helpless…” Her teeth pushed harder into her lower lip, and she hesitated for a long moment. “If you don’t answer me,” he continued, his voice still soft, “I am going to have to hurt you. And I would truly rather not do that just yet.” She winced at the thought, shifting and tugging uselessly at the cuffs that encircled her wrists.

“Yes,” she said, finally, reluctantly. He made a soft, curious sound, tugging gently on her hair as if urging her to continue. She fought with herself for a moment, shame warring with fear as she tried to work out how to continue. “I was…I was very young, the first few times. Seven, I think. The person who did it…he…he was older. Maybe thirteen. He tied me up with shoelaces, or jump ropes, whatever he had on hand. He…said he just liked w-watching me struggle.” His hands left her face, then, and she heard him move and pick something up. The click of a pen followed, and shortly after that she heard him begin to write.

“How interesting,” he said, nearly purring the word, and she turned her head slightly to one side with a grimace. “But…you say that those were only the first few times. Were there others?” She squirmed again, and heard the heart monitor’s beeping increase still further as her heart began to pound in her chest. She hated talking about herself in the best of circumstances, and this was certainly not the best situation. Still, she didn’t want to provoke the madman who currently sat behind her; she swallowed hard, then forced herself to speak again.

“I…I was eleven th…the next time,” she whispered, feeling her cheeks and the tips of her ears grow hot. “I had a friend with an older brother—he was eight years older than me—and we…we did a lot of…play-fighting with him. Sometimes, he’d lock his sister in the closet, and…then he’d pin me down and tie me up. Usually with a scarf or some yarn or…something. Then he’d…tickle me, while I couldn’t get away.” She winced when she heard Dr. Krieken laugh in response to this, the scratching of his pen on paper still audible.

“Such a sweet little thing,” he cooed, condescendingly, patting her cheek gently; she flinched again at the unexpected contact. “Did you enjoy it, hmm? Having him play with you like that?” She heard him shift slightly, and an instant later his fingers were tracing light, formless patterns on her belly, making her squirm and shiver as the cool latex of his gloves slid across her skin. She didn’t want to answer his question, and she could feel the heat that suffused her face spreading down her neck, all the way to the tops of her breasts.

“…yes,” she forced out, finally, only to hear him make a quiet sound of amusement. He patted her belly gently, and she heard the sound of him sitting down again, followed by another short period of writing. He paused then, for a painfully long moment; the room was entirely silent, except for the rapid beeping of the monitor and the quiet thrumming of the air circulating through the building. She stiffened slightly when she heard him lean forward, bringing his mouth close to her ear once again.

“That makes me wonder if you are enjoying what I’m doing to you,” he whispered, his voice soft. “I can see how someone like you—someone who writes the things you do—would appreciate this, and given what you’ve told me…” he trailed off with a soft chuckle, and she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, another wave of goosebumps making her skin prickle. “You don’t need to answer me, this time; I think I’ll be able to draw my own conclusions through… observation.” 

She froze, barely breathing, when he stood up; she heard the soft clatter of whatever he’d been using to write on being set aside, followed by the click of his pen. A moment later, one of his cold hands curled around her right breast, his thumb sliding across her nipple and make her draw in a ragged, hitching gasp. He was the only person other than her own doctor to touch her there in years, and she found—to her horror—that her body seemed to be reacting to his quiet voice and gentle hands.

“It does arouse you, doesn’t it?” he questioned, his tone light and still amused. “After all you’ve been through, you still respond so beautifully to my touch.” He slid his finger slowly across her nipple, and she squirmed and bit her lip. She stiffened, going still, when his hand slid lower, his fingertips ghosting across the expanse of her belly and finally brushing lightly across the curls at the apex of her thighs. She struggled against her bonds, then, fighting to pull her legs together and finding that the cuffs encircling her ankles prevented her from doing so.

“Oh…oh god, please don’t touch me, not there, I—” she began, stammering, breaking off abruptly when he lifted his hand away from her, her whole body trembling and the heart monitor emitting a different tone as the beeping increased in speed, one that sounded more like a warning. His hand settled against her chest again, just above her left breast, and she heard the sound of the chair being moved; he seemed to sit down a moment later, one hand still resting on her chest and the other one gently stroking her hair as he leaned in to speak to her once again.

“Shh. Hush, now,” he murmured, softly. “Poor little thing. Your heart is beating so fast; I can see your pulse here…” he patted her breast gently, “...and here,” he continued, his hand rising to stroke her throat as she swallowed nervously, his other hand still playing with her hair. “There’s no need for that; you’re only going to make yourself feel worse. And, while the restraints are padded, you may reopen that cut on your wrist if you keep struggling. If you can’t control yourself, then I’ll have to start an I.V. and give you something to calm you down.” She felt as if her heart skipped a beat; she tried to breathe deeply, to force herself to relax, but her heart continued to flutter just as rapidly in her chest. He was silent for what seemed like an agonizingly long time before he sighed deeply, his hand settling heavily on her throat for a moment before he stood up.

She heard him moving around behind her, followed by the sound of the chair being moved and something else being dragged closer. This did nothing to reassure her, and she began to strain against her bonds almost involuntarily; she knew, intellectually, that she had no chance of getting free, but that did nothing to stop the part of her brain that was screaming at her to get away from forcing her to try. She went rigid when he touched her left arm, just above the elbow, and pulled some sort of elastic material tight around her upper arm. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps as his gloved fingers gently probed the crook of her elbow, seeking a vein; he made a quiet sound of frustration a moment later and undid the band he had wrapped around her arm.

“You must be dehydrated,” he mused, and she felt the elastic pulled tight around her wrist as he forced her hand flat against the table, his fingers running along the back of her hand, rubbing gently. “Your veins don’t pop quite the way they should; at least, the ones up here didn’t,” he continued, patting her elbow briefly. “The ones in your hand are much more cooperative. All the same, I think I’ll get some fluids into you along with the sedative.” It seemed more like he was muttering to himself than talking to her, and she shivered when his hands left her skin and she heard the pop of the plastic cap being pushed back from a single-use needle; she had heard the sound often enough that she recognized it, even blindfolded as she was.

She forced back the urge to shiver as the back of her hand was rubbed with an alcohol-saturated cotton ball; and she froze, barely breathing, when he manipulated the skin of her hand with two of his fingers. The slight pain of a needle sliding into her vein followed shortly after that, and she felt him undo the elastic and fiddle with the needle a moment later; it was a strange and extremely disconcerting sensation to feel the catheter slide into the vein as the needle slid out. He continued to do something—connecting the I.V. line, she reasoned—and she felt a piece of adhesive pressed on to the back of her hand along with a piece of what she assumed was medical tape, meant to keep her from accidentally or deliberately dislodging the I.V. 

The coldness of fluid beginning to flow into her vein followed shortly after that, spreading slowly up her arm. She heard him move slightly and pick something else up; he moved her hand slightly a moment later, and she heard the soft sound of plastic against plastic. Her hand began to burn as a new fluid entered her system, and she relaxed against the table with a soft, involuntary sigh; the rapid beeping of the heart monitor began to slow, and the blood pressure cuff began to tighten once again. It released a moment later, and the doctor chuckled.

“There, that’s much better. I didn’t really want to do that, but I can’t have my favorite author giving herself a heart attack, now can I?” he questioned, patting her cheek fondly. She heard him moving things around again, and tried to focus on what he might be doing; it felt like her head was filled with cotton, and it felt to her as if every muscle in her body was limp with sudden exhaustion. She was still frightened, but it seemed that the most she could do was cry silently, her tears absorbed by the bandages around her eyes before they could trickle down her cheeks. 

“Now then…where was I?” His hand swept down her body, sliding over her breast and down along her ribs before it stopped just over her hip bone. “Ah, yes…I was asking if you were aroused by your current…predicament…and you were resisting my attempts to examine you. Let’s try that again, shall we? Without the resistance this time.” She let her head fall to one side, making a little sound of dismay as she felt him shift again, his hands resting on her thighs for a moment before sliding between her legs. He spread her open carefully, using both thumbs, and she shivered when he leaned in so close that she could feel his breath against her as he chuckled softly. 

“Oh, you are a precious little thing,” he murmured, moving his hands again; she tensed slightly when she felt one of his gloved fingertips trace her sex, sliding over her clit and down to her opening, stroking her gently without trying to push into her. She squirmed slightly when he walked away again, trying to dispel the memory of his hands on her while at the same time wishing to be touched again. It wasn’t that she trusted him or truly appreciated his ministrations; it was simply because she was cold, dizzy, and frightened, and the touch of a human hand was soothing. She heard the faint sound of him writing something down once again, followed by a slight tug on the I.V. line as he moved what she assumed was the stand it was attached to out of the way. A moment later, his mouth was at her ear, one of his hands stroking her breast while the other toyed with her hair again.

“Now, I’m going to ask you a few more questions,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I would remind you to answer honestly, but I don’t think you’ll need any prompting from me to do that,” he added, and she could have sworn that she felt the way he smiled as he spoke. “How many men have you had sex with?” The question took her by surprise, and she stiffened slightly for a moment before the drug still coursing through her system forced her to relax again. 

“Only one,” she responded, before she really had time to realize that she was speaking. “And…it wasn’t…it was rape, so I don’t usually count it,” she added, her voice sounding slurred even to her own ears. She shifted slightly under his hand as he caught her nipple between thumb and forefinger and tugged lightly, forcing a soft sound from her as she tried to figure out what she was feeling; the drugged haze that clouded her mind seemed to soften sensations, and all she really felt was a slowly spreading burn extending outward across her chest, as if she had taken a quick gulp of wine. 

“And how did this happen, hmm? Was it violent?” he questioned, his voice still soft and faintly amused as he punctuated his sentence with a sudden, sharp twist of her nipple. She made a quiet sound in response, still uncertain whether what she was feeling was pain or pleasure; she arched slightly, wanting to pull away but unable to do so. He released her after a moment, stroking the abused flesh to soothe some of the ache from it.

“No, it…it wasn’t like that. I was…seventeen, and I had taken Valium. M…my boyfriend came into my room, and—”she broke off abruptly when he began to laugh, flinching slightly at the sound and turning her face away from him. The hand that had been playing with her hair moved to cup her cheek, forcing her to turn her head so that she was facing upwards once again.

“There’s some small amount of irony in this situation then, isn’t there? Once again you find yourself helpless and drugged and under someone else’s control,” he said, the hand that had been stroking her breast gripping it abruptly, squeezing lightly and kneading the soft flesh until she made a little sound of muted dismay in response to the pleasure this brought. Even through the haze that clouded her mind, however, she still felt an uncomfortable jolt of alarm when he spoke. 

“I can only imagine what must be going through your mind…but I’d rather not have to. You’ll be writing about this later, you know,” he said, and she shuddered at the thought. His hand drifted down, stroking the soft spot just below her breastbone. “You’ve only written one story from the victim’s point of view—to my knowledge, at least—and you never finished it. Even so, it was my favorite.” He paused for a moment, and his hands pulled away from her for a moment before he set one on her chin and forced her head back as much as her position and bonds would allow for, holding her there. “And I would love to see another like it.” He released his hold on her chin abruptly, and she let her head drop to one side, tears that she hadn’t felt building up in her eyes spilling out to soak the bandage that covered them.

She heard him begin to hum softly as he moved behind her, a song that she felt she might recognize if her mind was not so clouded. She stiffened slightly at the soft clinking of metal on metal, followed by the quiet rustle of cloth as he sat down once again. He turned her head again so that she was facing up once more, his gloved hand settling across her forehead as if to hold her still; she realized why a moment later when the bandage that covered her eyes was lifted slightly and then cut. He carefully brushed the fabric aside, and she blinked rapidly in the bright light of the room, her eyes watering; she froze after a moment, though, her wide-eyed gaze focusing on the point of the knife that was slowly drawing closer to her left eye. Finally, when the tip of it was so close that she didn’t dare to blink, her breath coming in rapid, shallow gasps, he stopped.

“What are you afraid of?” he murmured, leaning forward slightly until his face was at the edge of her vision. There was an intensity in his voice that frightened her, and she let out a low, distressed whimper as the blade moved in a slow, small circle in front of her eye. Her thoughts were still hazy, but the adrenalin seemed to be clearing her head somewhat. She hesitated for a moment, holding her breath and trying to figure out what to say before she let it out abruptly.

“Pain…and darkness,” she breathed, her words barely audible. The blade was drawn away instantly, and Krieken laughed as her eyes fluttered closed in relief. The hand that had rested on her forehead moved to slide under her chin, tipping her head back slightly. She gasped, startled, when she felt cold steel slide across her cheek.

“You do have a way with words,” he chuckled, and she felt the blade move until the tip rested behind the hinge of her jaw, a silent threat. “Open your eyes.” His voice was still soft, but his tone was insistent. She forced her eyes open, feeling slightly dizzy as she found herself looking up into his grey eyes. He smiled down at her, and felt her stomach twist, another little whine escaping her as she shifted slightly, her limbs still feeling heavy and weak. 

“You don’t need to be afraid, you know,” he added, after a moment. “For one thing, you have my solemn oath that I won’t do any harm to your eyes, arms, or hands. After all, I need you to be able to write, don’t I?” His tone seemed almost sardonic, and the slight twist of his mouth that accompanied this statement was deeply unsettling; she wasn’t sure, however, if the tone was real or if she was imagining things, helped along by fear and whatever drug he had given her. “And for another, I promised that I wouldn’t cause you any physical pain today—and my word is my bond.” His smile turned cruel, and a little sob forced its way out of her; he moved the knife away just in time to avoid cutting her as her body jerked.

“Tomorrow, however…” he trailed off with a low, unpleasant snicker, rising smoothly and moving out of her sight for a moment before coming back into view, standing beside her; one hand settled just beneath the slight swell of her belly, the other dragging the knife carefully down her chest. “I have a few alterations in mind,” he continued, his tone suddenly light and conversational once again. “Some will be purely cosmetic, and, to be quite frank, I expect that you will enjoy the experience, based on your own…proclivities,” and here he moved, turning to touch the knife to her right thigh; a little shudder worked its way down her spine as she realized he was tracing the scars she had left on herself. “But others will be more…surgical in nature. I’m still deciding—ah, well. That can wait for a moment.”

Rhiannon found herself feeling more and more ill as he continued to speak, and far less affected by the drug he had given her; the name of it escaped her, but based on the short duration of the effects and the nausea that was twisting her stomach into knots, she recognized it as something she had been given during one of her many trips to the hospital as a teenager. She swallowed hard, closing her eyes for a moment and trying very hard not to throw up; trapped on her back as she was, she knew that getting sick would be a particularly unpleasant affair. His hand and the knife he had been teasing her with were both pulled away, and she heard the quiet clatter of the blade being returned to the tray he had picked it up from, followed by the click of a pen and the sound of something being quickly written down.

“You’re doubtlessly feeling a bit ill,” he remarked, a moment later, and she heard him set the clipboard aside. She made a soft sound of agreement that faded into a dismayed groan, and heard him moving behind her; she couldn’t focus on the sound for very long, however, as the sickness that gripped her was a far more pressing matter. 

“I will make a deal with you, if you like,” he added, and she opened her eyes slowly when his hand brushed her face again. “I will give you something for the nausea—Phenergan; your records say that you’ve responded well to it in the past—if you promise me something in return. In a few minutes, I am going to need to remove your restraints so that I can turn you over. It won’t be for a while, yet, so you should be feeling much better by the time I get around to it. I want your word that you won’t struggle or attempt to run,” he said, and she blinked at him, already thinking vaguely of making an effort to escape. He leaned down over her then, his face so close to her own that she could feel the heat of his breath against her lips, and his left hand gripped her throat abruptly, squeezing lightly. 

“It would not be hard to overpower you, Rhiannon,” he said, very softly, his tone careful and even. “And once I had you strapped down again, I would take great delight in crushing every bone below your hips, one at a time.” His tone never changed, his calm smile never wavering. She gagged suddenly, the sound abrupt and ugly in the quiet room, and he drew back quickly; his grin widened as he looked down at her, his face once again hazy an indistinct at this distance. “Is that a yes?”

“Y-yes, I promise, I swear, I won’t…I won’t…” she stammered, choking on her words, her sentence trailing off into a whimper as she was forced to close her mouth and swallow hard once again. He patted her cheek gently, then moved away for a second. When he returned, she watched him swab the end of a syringe with a square of alcohol-soaked gauze before taking hold of the IV line at her wrist and twisting the syringe into place. The medicine burned as it entered her system, and she grimaced for a moment before relaxing slightly as the nausea began to fade. 

“Good girl,” he praised her, his tone only faintly mocking. He disconnected the syringe from the line and moved out of sight once again. “It seems you really were dehydrated; you’ve gone through a little over half a bag of saline already. That’s not a good thing, my dear.” His voice came from somewhere behind her, and she didn’t bother trying to crane her neck to see him; she was too busy enjoying the momentary surcease that the medication had brought to her discomfort. He returned to her a moment later, and her gaze flicked nervously to his hands where he held something that she didn’t immediately recognize; it was little more than a black blur in her vision, and she didn’t want to try squinting again. There was a squeak of plastic a moment later, and the sound combined with the sharp, unpleasant smell that reached her a moment later told her that it was some form of marker.

“I am sorry about the knife,” he said, smoothing his left hand over her chest as he spoke, finally allowing it to settle on her breast as he leaned over her with the marker, seemingly looking for something. “I got…rather carried away. I didn’t intend to do anything more than remove the blindfold, but seeing the way you quivered when it touched you…well. I can’t deny that it had an effect on me.” He smiled, but his tone seemed almost distracted as he carefully touched the marker to her chest just below her collar bone. She felt heat rise in her cheeks as she realized he was writing on her; she wasn’t sure exactly what it was that he was writing, but she couldn’t imagine that it was anything good. “This is to…get a feel for where I want to leave my mark, tomorrow,” he added, seemingly by way of explanation. “Would you like to know what I’m writing?” He paused, meeting her gaze with an incongruously warm smile. She stared in silence for a moment, until his gaze turned to something dangerously close to a frown and she realized it was not a rhetorical question.

“Yes,” she managed, finally, though she was not at all certain that she really did want to know. He laughed softly, finally looking away from her eyes to continue writing for a moment. She fought the urge to shiver at the smooth glide of the marker’s cold tip across her skin; it was almost pleasant, and she winced slightly at the ease with which he could force a physical response from her body. She had been described as touch-starved by more than one person in the past, and it was becoming painfully clear how accurate that description was, if the slight dampness between her spread legs was any indication. Her cheeks and ears burned with shame. All it took for her body to betray her, it seemed, was a gentle touch; never mind the fact that it came from a maniac who had kidnapped her and seemed intent on torturing her.

“It reads ‘Property of Doctor Nathaniel Krieken,’” he said, with no small amount of relish, before his smile turned suddenly sheepish and almost apologetic. “It’s something that I’ve dreamed of for quite a while, you know; ever since I first read your work, I’ve wanted to…make an impression on you. And, to be perfectly honest, I’m…very pleased to have you in my possession, Rhiannon, and you’re quickly becoming my favorite plaything. You’re so quiet, and yet you don’t try to hide what you’re feeling; it’s really…very enjoyable to touch you,” he admitted, his tone almost one of admiration for a moment before his smile faded into a predatory smirk as she felt the final “-en’ written neatly on her chest, just above her right breast. He moved the marker away from her for a moment, leaning down to speak softly into her ear. “And you cannot begin to imagine how much I am looking forward to working on you tomorrow.” She flinched slightly at the sensation of his breath against her ear, her skin prickling and the hair at the back of her neck standing up. He drew away after a moment, straightening up and moving to stand closer to her hip.

She closed her eyes when she felt the cool tip of the marker touch down just above the curve of her hip. There was a moment of hesitation, followed by the sound of the writing utensil being set down on the table next to her, she opened her eyes in confusion, to find him opening a small foil packet containing an antiseptic wipe which he used to carefully wipe the ink from her belly. She watched him in confusion for a moment, until he turned to meet her gaze once again.

“I had thought to write something there, but I think it might be better written on your back,” he said, stroking her stomach for a moment in a way that might have been soothing had it been anyone else performing the action. He paused for a moment, then turned abruptly and walked out of view. “You know,” he began, and his voice sounded very far away indeed. “I almost forgot to take pictures! Of course, everything is being filmed—to fill in the gaps in your memory—but I do want a few clear, still pictures to keep for…personal reference. You can’t imagine how beautiful you look like this.” His voice drew closer, and a moment later he entered her view, and she was dully surprised to see that he held what looked like an old film camera of the sort her father—who dabbled in professional photography—had owned when she was only five years old. Of course, she couldn’t be sure at her current distance from him, but she had grown used to seeing her father’s camera without her glasses; she had always made a point to remove them in pictures.

“Everyone tells me that I should get a digital camera,” he mused, peering at her through the viewfinder. “But I think they lack some of the soul of the film variety. And, in addition to that, developing film has become…something of a hobby of mine,” he said, and she could see the bright white of his smile beneath the bottom edge of the camera for an instant before he snapped the picture. She flinched slightly at the sound of the shutter, followed by the sounds of him readying it to take another picture. She made a point of not looking at him as he paced slowly around her, taking pictures and occasionally moving some part of her into a slightly different position. Finally, he set the camera carefully down on her chest and took hold of her chin in one hand, turning her head to face him and running his fingers through her hair, smoothing it carefully around her face. 

“Now, look at me,” he murmured, softly, picking up his camera once more. She stared into the blackness of the lens, finding it suddenly hard not to begin crying again. The shutter clicked once more, and he said something that she couldn’t quite make out. “Perfect,” he said, lowering his camera with a smirk before moving out of sight once again. When he returned, he held some instrument that she couldn’t see clearly in his left hand, and he moved quickly to the opposite end of the table. The beeping of the heart monitor began to quicken again, her mouth going dry as he set whatever it was on the table and slid his hands slowly up the insides of her thighs. 

“There’s one last thing I need to do before I’ll need you to turn over. I’ve had time to get a good look at the rest of you, but I haven’t had the opportunity for an internal examination.” She could see the white flash of his smile even at this distance, and she felt almost unable to breathe for a moment. “This shouldn’t hurt,” he promised, delicately spreading the folds of her sex with two fingers of one hand, a single digit from the other pressing lightly against her opening.

“P…please, don’t,” she pleaded, her voice higher than usual and tight with fear. The rapid beeping of the heart monitor continued, and she flinched, startled, when the blood pressure cuff began to tighten again unexpectedly. He moved his hands away for a moment, and looked down at him sharply, surprised that he seemed to have listened to her.

“This is necessary,” he said, firmly. “Close your eyes, if you must, and breathe slowly and deeply.” She did as she was told after a moment, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a slow breath. She held it for a moment, then let it out abruptly when she felt his fingertip slid across her clitoris, making her legs twitch and her hips lift slightly off the table. He laughed at that, and she flinched at the sound; he coaxed a low whine from her when he touched her again, his fingertip moving in light, careful circles against her as she stiffened and twisted in her bonds. “You are a delight to play with,” he said, still chuckling as she turned her head aside, trying very hard not to respond to his touch and finding it impossible.

“There now,” he said, after a painfully long, humiliating moment, his finger drifting farther down and his other hand returning to spread her open once again. “This should be much easier.” This time there was no hesitation before his finger pressed into her, and she bit back a soft sound of pain. His fingers were slender for a man of his size, but still thicker than her own; the stretch as one slid into her was uncomfortable, and she squeezed tightly around the intruding digit, an involuntary attempt to push it back out. He made an inarticulate sound of surprise, and she forced her eyes open, squinting down at him for a moment only to find him staring up at her, his eyes wide enough that she could tell he was stunned. 

“You’re a very small woman,” he said, after a moment of silence. “I had assumed that you would be tight, having never had children, but this is…unexpected.” He rotated his hand slowly, and she winced, not quite closing her eyes at the strangeness of the sensation. “The positioning of everything is good, at least,” he murmured, barely audible, and she made a strangled sound of dismay when his finger dragged across an alarmingly sensitive spot inside her, making her twitch once again, inner muscles clamping down on his finger even more tightly than before. He withdrew his finger carefully, and she let out a shaky sigh of relief as he walked away again, only to stiffen in sudden alarm at his next words. “I suppose I’ll need to use the pediatric speculum.”

She heard him pick something up, and she squirmed slightly as he reentered her view only to position himself between her legs once again, this time sitting down on a chair or stool that she hadn’t known was there until then. She heard the sound of something being opened, and this was followed quickly by the application of a startlingly cold, slick substance to her sex. She gasped softly as his finger pushed briefly inside of her once again, before being withdrawn.

“Now, ordinarily this would be done with your feet in stirrups, but I’m not entirely certain you’d be able to keep from kicking me out of reflex, and I imagine we would both regret that,” he said, his tone mild but the threat still clear. “I will need you to stay relaxed and quite still, so that this doesn’t get too painful and I am still able to see clearly. Do you understand?” She considered protesting again, begging him not to do this, but she knew that it be entirely futile. She went abruptly limp, a silent sob shaking her shoulders before she could repress it. She swallowed twice, hard, and then spoke.

“I understand,” she forced out, her voice a little softer than she had intended. Clearly, he still heard her, if the brief, gentle stroking of her inner thigh was any indication. She tried to stay relaxed, breathing slowly and focusing on the beeping of the heart monitor—now slowly returning to normal—instead of his movements between her thighs, but her focus broke when she felt cold metal brush against her opening and then begin to slide into her. She clenched her fists tightly, trying not to squirm or tense up at the strange sensation; she held her breath as it slid further inside of her, substantially farther than his finger had gone. All movement stopped for a moment, and she let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Very good,” he said, softly. “Now comes the…difficult part. I’m going to open it and lock it in place for a moment, and I really can’t imagine that it will be particularly comfortable for you,” he said, and she thought—in a sudden moment of dark humor—that it was the only time a doctor had been honest with her about a procedure. Still, she was alarmed by the sudden sensation of being stretched, heat making her cheeks burn as she flushed, tears welling up in her eyes. It was uncomfortable, but it didn’t hurt; it was the humiliation of being so open and exposed and knowing that he was peering into the most private area of her body that brought tears to her eyes. He remained there for a horribly long moment, and a few times she felt the gentle, though still disconcerting, touch of a cotton swab inside of her; by the time he unlocked the handle and withdrew the device, the tears she had been trying to hold back ran freely from her eyes, trickling down her temples and into her hair.

“Well, everything looks fairly normal, if somewhat small. You do have a bit of scar tissue, but I would assume that is from the rape you mentioned earlier; it seems to be quite old, and not very bad,” he said, picking up the speculum and standing up, moving out of her view once again. She heard him return the instrument to its tray and remove his gloves, only to put on another pair almost immediately. He returned to her side, and she felt him fiddling with the IV once again; something was pulled free after a moment, and she craned her neck to see what he was doing. “I needed to disconnect the bag of saline; it was nearly empty anyhow. I’m going to remove the blood pressure cuff and the heart rate monitor as well; I’ll put them back in place once you turn over onto your belly.” 

Her heart sped up slightly at the thought of being unrestrained, and she—for a second time— contemplated attempting to fight him; his earlier statement about breaking every bone in her lower body returned to the forefront of her mind, however, and a little shudder went through her as she tried to dispel the thought. By the time she had managed this, he already stood at her other side, carefully unwrapping the tape from the device that had been attached to her middle finger during all of this, pulling the monitor itself off as well. Immediately, the machine it was attached to began emitting a steady, unhappy sort of sound; he muttered something under his breath and she heard him press a few buttons before the room went abruptly silent. The blood pressure cuff that wrapped around her upper arm came next, and as he pulled the Velcro free and removed it, she heard him make a startled sound of something that was almost disbelief.

“You have bruises from that?” His gloved fingertips traced the lines left on her upper arm gently, almost reverently, and she fought back another shiver. “That’s…really quite extraordinary. I suppose I should have known; you’re so pale, it wouldn’t take that much for a mark to show up. You have lovely skin, Rhiannon, and I’m—I’m going to enjoy seeing how it bruises, breaks, and heals.” His tone was even, but his slight stammer wasn’t lost on her; there was a terrible sort of excitement in his voice, and she bit down hard on her lower lip to stifle a whimper. He cleared his throat, once, and then eased the blood pressure cuff out from under her arm, busying himself with that machine for a moment as if to gather his composure before he turned back to her.

“Now…I am going to begin unfastening your restraints. Once you are able to do so, I want you to sit up slowly; I will help you stand up so that I can remove your gown, and then I will put you back on the table. Don’t worry if you feel faint upon standing; that is normal, and I am perfectly able to hold you up,” he informed her, and she felt her heart quicken as he began working at the restraint around her right wrist. She felt it come free, and winced slightly when the padded section of the restraint pulled at the dried blood from the shallow wound that the plastic zip tie had left when she was being brought to this place. Dr. Krieken made a sound of disgust, gently taking hold of her hand and running a gloved thumb across the cut. 

“This is why I dislike dealing with...the less than cultured men I am forced to hire. They can be so careless; I didn’t want you to be hurt yet. Ah, well; I suppose it isn’t important. I’ll clean and bandage it for you, and it should heal very nicely,” he said, his voice soft enough that she assumed that he was talking to himself. She saw him move out of sight again, and took the opportunity to hastily pulled the hospital gown she wore back over her body, covering herself somewhat clumsily before letting her hand drop back to the table. She flinched slightly at his snort of amusement when he returned to her side, and pointedly avoided his gaze as he spoke. “You realize that I have already seen and handled everything you just covered up,” he pointed out, his teeth flashing white in another blurry smile. He chuckled indulgently, patting her head before he attended to her wrist.

His hands were gentle and quick, and other than the slight sting of an alcohol-soaked cotton swab being run across the wound, there was no pain. He dabbed a bit of antiseptic cream onto the area, and then very carefully placed a square of gauze over the area before winding a length of bandage around that and taping it into place. She thought vaguely that it might be overkill, considering the size of the wound itself, but was quickly distracted from this when he moved around behind her and then to her other side, deftly unfastening the cuff around that wrist before moving to the other end of the table. 

The first ankle restraint seemed somewhat stiff, and it took a moment for him to get it undone. She let out a sudden, nearly explosive breath when he freed her final limb, sitting up abruptly only to have the world lurch uncomfortably around her, blackness threatening at the edges of her vision. She swayed, blinking to clear her vision until he appeared in front of her, sliding his arms around her and holding her steady for a moment before he carefully lifted her up and to her feet, keeping her upright and balanced by holding her pressed against himself. This close, she realized that he smelled of vanilla as well as peppermint, and she found the familiar, pleasant smells disconcerting in such a strange and frightening situation. She began to shake, and was entirely unsure whether it was from exhaustion, drugs, and adrenalin, or simply from fear as one of the doctor’s large hands rose to cradle the back of her head, pressing her face to his chest as his other arm worked its way under the hospital gown to wrap around her waist.

“Ah, schatje,” he murmured, bending over her, his breath stirring her hair as he spoke—she realized with a little jolt that he was speaking Dutch. His tone was slightly uneven for the first time since he had begun speaking to her, and his voice seemed almost strained with emotion. He released his grip on the back of her head after a moment, using that hand to slowly work the gown—still untied in the front—down her shoulders until it finally slipped free from her arms, dropping to pool around their feet; she was shaking so hard at this point that her teeth had begun to chatter, and she made a little sound of distress at the feeling of his body against hers. She could feel his hardness pushing against her belly, and the thought that he might act on his arousal terrified her. He drew back slightly after a moment, one arm still encircling her waist and holding her up, and the other sliding over her hip and around to her backside, squeezing lightly and making her jerk forward slightly. 

“This sounds…terribly cliché, but I always imagined that you would be bigger,” he said, with a little half smirk, his hand running up along her spine, making her arch and stiffen; her back had always been hypersensitive and the gentle touch of his gloved hand was almost too much for her to handle. He paused for a moment, then drew one finger down along her spine, this time eliciting a little gasp, followed by an embarrassing groan from her. She had never been able to explain the sensation to anyone; the closest she came was in saying that it felt like a cross between a jolt of electricity and an orgasm. She felt herself flush again, tears welling up in her eyes and threatening to spill down her cheeks as shame made her stomach twist uncomfortably. “…and less delicate,” he added, sounding amused, still smiling down at her. “Though I have to say, I am rather pleased with your…stature and your sensitivity. Your reactions are beautiful.”

She didn’t have much time to respond before she found herself suddenly lifted off the ground; he set back down on the table before leaving her view once again, leaving her to curl in on herself, hugging her knees to her chest. She was still shaking, and now she was almost certain it was a combination of fear and fatigue. Still, she straightened slightly and turned to peer over her shoulder at him when he returned; he set something down at the head of the table, and when she squinted, she was able to make out that it was a very odd-looking pillow.

“This will keep your neck and back at the angle that I would like, without putting undue pressure on your face,” he said, his tone mild and pleasant once again. “It’s commonly used in surgeries the must be performed on the spine, though the table is somewhat different in such cases,” he continued, after a moment, and she cringed slightly at the thought, abruptly hesitant to lie down. He waited in silence for a moment, then moved as if to position her himself; she prevented this by uncurling and carefully turning over, allowing her face to rest in the pillow and keeping her arms flat against her sides. 

“Good girl,” he murmured, the mocking tone returning to his voice as he carefully repositioned her right arm, bending it at the elbow and then laying her forearm flat on the table once again. She groaned softly, frightened and dismayed, when she felt him gently refasten the cuff around her wrist. He worked his way around the table from there, replacing her restraints as well as the blood pressure cuff and the device that measured heart rate and blood oxygenation, taping it down around her finger once again. Her breathing was rapid and shallow as she listened to the sounds he made as he moved around her, and the beeping of the heart monitor was worryingly quick again as he moved to stand beside her, carefully lifting her hair up off her neck. It caught on the latex gloves he wore, pulling slightly; he seemed to recognize this, and to her great surprise, she heard him remove his gloves.

“I…do hope you will forgive me for this, Rhiannon,” he said, very softly, and she could feel his breath on her ear again. “I know that it is…unprofessional of me to remove my gloves mid-examination, and I…probably should have waited until we were finished here to do this, but you…” and here he broke off with a chuckle, pausing a moment before continuing. “…you looked so tempting, laid out on my table, unable to get away or even see what I’m about to do to you—for the second time today—that I couldn’t help myself.” 

She tensed slightly as he spoke; the same disturbing intensity that had crept into his voice the first time he stammered returned, all the more worrisome after his lapse into what she assumed was his native language a moment earlier. She was jolted from her contemplations when she felt the warm, bare skin of his palm brush her back before his fingers slid slowly upwards and into the hair at the nape of her neck. He spent a worryingly long moment simply playing with her hair, twisting it between his fingers, lifting and tugging at it, rubbing his fingertips against her scalp. His ministrations went on for long enough—and remained gentle enough—that she found her worn-out body beginning to relax despite the innate peril of her situation, the beeping of her heart monitor slowing to a far calmer rate. 

Finally, when she was on the very edge of sleep, he carefully gathered her hair in one hand twisting it carefully before using what felt like a hairpin to secure it in a loose bun at the back of her head. There was a long moment of silence, with her still floating somewhere between sleep and waking, his hands no longer in contact with her. She was jolted into awareness a moment later, at the sound of him putting on a new pair of gloves. She made a sound of disappointment that she was almost certain he couldn’t hear, only to stiffen slightly a moment later when his gloved fingertips once again made contact with her neck.

“You do have very lovely hair,” he said, his tone having returned to its usual neutrality. “Which does make your peculiar brand of trichophilia all the more surprising,” he added, and even though she was face down on the table, her eyes went wide with sudden alarm as she flushed in unexpected shame. “You only wrote about it once, didn’t you? The story about the interrogator who became so wrapped up in his victim that he was distraught when he finally broke her; you wrote about him cutting her hair, and then confided in me that you hoped no one commented on that part. Of course, I wanted to know more, but you were…unwilling to discuss it, at the time. Perhaps,” he said, his lips nearly touching her ear, “…you will be more willing to discuss it now.” She swallowed convulsively, twisting slightly in her bonds, suddenly very grateful that she didn’t have to look at him. “Why does it bother you so much to talk about that, when you’re perfectly willing to discuss your other…fascinations?” She hesitated for a long moment, long enough that he sighed and shifted to grip the back of her neck. She didn’t wait to see what he would do from there, instead blurting out her answer.

“I’m…afraid of being laughed at,” she admitted, reluctantly, her face still feeling hot. “Or being…mocked, I guess. I…got made fun of for a lot of things, w-when I was a child, mostly for things I enjoyed doing, like…reading, or…writing. And I’ve…I’ve had this fetish—” she stumbled slightly over the word, wincing and biting her lip in silence for a moment before continuing, “…since before I was old enough to know w-what a fetish was. I was…maybe six the first time I…realized that getting my hair cut made me…made me…feel different. And I was always worried that someone w…would find out, and make fun of me for that, too. Or that they would…take advantage somehow, I…I don’t know,” she said, her voice trailing off into a whisper. He chuckled, the hand at the back of her neck squeezing a little tighter for a moment before releasing his grip to let his hand slide down along her back.

“You do realize that, at some point, I am going to insert a photoplethysmograph into you to measure and record how aroused you become as I—or perhaps someone I hire to do so—cuts your hair?” His question was asked in a pleasant enough voice, but it still forced a little whimper out of her, her face twisting up into a grimace of dismay at the thought. “I’ll admit, it is not a fetish that I share, but I find it…intriguing, seeing how strongly it affects you. But that is neither here nor there; I have far more pressing matters to attend to, currently,” he said, dragging his fingertips up along her spine once again, making her arch slightly in response to the sensation. He lifted his hand from her back, and she heard the sound of plastic squeaking once again as a marker was uncapped. She shivered slightly when she felt the cool tip of it touch the back of her neck, just below her hairline; from what she could feel, the letters were small and precise, carefully fitted to the space available.

“I will not ask you to guess what that says; even if you could pick out the letters as I wrote them, it isn’t in a language that you speak—unless your father taught you more Dutch than you claimed?” She made what was undoubtedly muffled sound of negation, and he leaned in close once more to speak into her ear. “It means ‘my favorite author,’” he said, quietly, his tone caught between sardonic and admiring. He seemed to straighten up once again, raising his voice slightly. 

“And here,” he began, running a single finger across the area between her shoulder blades, “I intend to write, ‘the Composer.’ I think it would be…appropriate, to give you a permanent reminder of how we came to be together. Don’t you agree?” She was silent as she felt marker touch her skin again, biting her lower lip hard and trying not to think too hard about what his use of the word ‘permanent’ might entail. She focused instead on recognizing each letter as it was written on her skin, and trying not to shudder whenever the marker moved across a particularly sensitive area. Finally, she heard the marker capped once more and set aside, followed by the sound of him shifting beside her; she was taken by surprise when, a moment later, he blew lightly on her back as if to help the ink dry. She shivered again, her heart rate increasing once again as he ran one finger slowly down her spine, starting from slightly below the words he had just finished writing and finishing at her tailbone.

“Now, then...I have one question to ask you before we finish here,” he said, pitching his voice just loud enough that she could hear him clearly. She bit her lip, shifting slightly in her bonds, worried about what might come next. “I am going to cripple you.” The words were spoken in the same mild tone, and at first her brain simply refused to process what he had said. She remained frozen in place, holding her breath, until it truly dawned on her—and at that point, she found it almost impossible to breathe in again. She choked, fighting to gasp for breath and so stunned and overwhelmed by sudden fear that she found herself unable to do so. Two different warning tones began to sound from the heart monitor: one to indicate that she wasn’t breathing, and another to indicate a sudden and dramatic jump in heart rate. She finally managed a deep, unsteady gasp when he thumped her abruptly on the back, hard enough to make her eyes water. When she let out that breath, it came out in a sudden rush of words. 

“No, please, you...you can’t, you can’t, I swear I won’t try to run away, I swear to God, just—just please, don’t...don’t...” she found herself unable to finish the sentence wracked with a sudden bout of terrified sobbing. The hand he had struck her with rubbed gentle circles low on her back, and he shushed her quietly as she struggled and squirmed on the table, not consciously intending to but desperate to get away from him. He allowed her to wear herself out, until her struggles had weakened and her sobs—though still hard enough to shake her—had become silent before he spoke again.

“You really don’t have a choice in the matter,” he said, stroking her lower back once again. “I am going to do it. The only thing that you get any say in is how I go about it. I am a surgeon by trade, and there are two ways that I see to accomplish what I want to do; one of them I have had more practice with than the other. Your first choice is that I severe your spinal cord about here,” he began, stroking a spot low on her back. She shuddered and made an involuntary sound of horror at the thought, still tense and squirming weakly. “In that case, I would render you unconscious in order to perform the surgery, as I cannot have you thrashing about in pain and damaging more than I intend. There would be minimal pain, but you would most likely lose bladder and bowel function, and it is highly unlikely that you would be able to orgasm again. Possible, of course, but not probable.” 

“Wh…what’s my second choice?” she managed to force out through numb lips, shock making her slur her words slightly. He laughed quietly, running his hand slowly down her body to the back of her knee, stroking the sensitive skin there until she tried to pull away. At that point he gripped her calf just below her knee firmly with one hand, holding her still.

“Your second choice is being—and this is a crude word for it—hamstrung,” he said, and she could almost hear the smirk in his voice. “I would strap you down very securely to something called a fracture table so that you would be completely immobilized, and then—while you were still completely conscious and able to feel everything I did—I would make an incision here and cut the tendon that runs along the back of your thigh,” he continued, drawing a small circle on the back of her knee with one fingertip before running the same finger slowly up her thigh to indicate the places he mentioned. She made a low sound of horror, biting down hard on her lower lip and squeezing her eyes more tightly shut. 

“It would be far more painful, but it would leave you with control over your…faculties, which I am sure that you would appreciate. And, I do imagine that I would have to sedate you to do the second leg, as I don’t believe I would be able to undo your restraints, change the positions of all the various apparatuses that make up the table and strap you down again in a reasonable amount of time without you doing yourself serious injury with the thrashing that would inevitably follow such pain.” He paused for a long moment, then spoke once more. 

“Ordinarily, I would say that I hate to rush you, but I don’t imagine that me giving you more time would help you make up your mind. What is your decision?” She went perfectly still for a long moment, her mind racing and her heart rate beginning to climb once again. There was no good choice; either of the things he was forcing her to choose between would be painful and would mean life in a wheel chair. However, one of those choices would lead to a lifetime of being unable to control her bodily functions; perhaps it was foolish vanity speaking, but that thought horrified her more than the idea of going through the pain of surgery while wide awake.

“The second one,” she whispered, only to have him move up and lean down closer to her head with a questioning sound. “The s-second one!” she repeated, louder, and he laughed again. This time it was a wholly unpleasant sound; full of cruel amusement yet still tinged with that damnable note of admiration.

“I had hoped you would choose that one,” he said, his mouth very close to her ear once again. “I am looking forward to seeing what sounds you’ll make, when the tendon finally gives way,” he added, his voice fading to an unsteady whisper, one of his hands deftly plucking the bobby pin from her hair and the other smoothing it carefully down over the back of her neck once again, hiding what he had written there. She sobbed once, harshly; the sound—brief as it was— still left her throat raw.

“How…how long until…?” she asked, her voice cracking slightly. He was silent for a moment, the laughed abruptly, the sound so normal and full of warmth as to be utterly incongruous with the things he had just said to her.

“Oh, my dear girl,” he murmured, his hands moving to unfasten the restraint at her right wrist. “You have plenty of time. It’s only eleven thirty in the morning.”

She felt her throat constrict painfully, and she swallowed hard several times as she fought back the urge to sob. When he finally helped her sit up with her bare legs dangling over the edge of the table, his hand cupping her cheek gently for a moment, she felt as if something inside of her simply gave way. Her expression crumpled, her lips drawing back from her teeth and her mouth falling open as she began to cry. The sounds were loud in the otherwise quiet room, deep braying sobs that seemed barely human, and Nathaniel drew back for a moment as if stunned. Her vision blurred with tears, leaving her unable to make out even the shapes of things in the room, everything fading into blurs of white and grey. 

She heard him say something, but it was lost in the sounds of her own crying. There was still some part of her—as there always was—that was detached enough to offer commentary; she realized that she was hysterical, and that there was no way for her to stop crying on her own. Similarly, she realized that it was getting hard to breathe; her breath came in great, whooping gasps, only to be forced out immediately in a harsh, guttural sob. She was only dimly aware of it when she felt his arms slide around her body, one hand rubbing circles low on her back and the other pressing her head to his chest. She had a very brief memory of the feeling of three inches of wood breaking under the palm of her hand, and she brought both of her hands up to his chest; all she did, however, was curl her trembling fingers into the rough fabric of his lab coat, clinging to him.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, her sobs died away. She was left crying silently, shivering irregularly, still grasping at the fabric of his coat. She felt sick and hollow as she forced her hands to drop to her sides, finally aware of the doctor’s quiet murmuring; it was largely soothing nonsense, though every so often she would catch the words “hush, now.” She tried to pull away, and was surprised when he allowed it. She scooted farther back on the table as he stepped back, trying not to look at him as he reached into one of his pockets.

“I was wondering when that was going to happen,” he said, mildly, and she flinched when he wiped her eyes with the handkerchief he had produced before holding it to her nose and cradling the back of her head with his free hand. “Blow,” he said, firmly, and she felt herself flush as she did so, another little hiccupping sob forcing itself out of her as he wiped her nose, then folded the handkerchief over to wipe her mouth. This close, she could see the wet spot on his chest from her crying, and she shifted uncomfortably on the table as he turned away to do something with the handkerchief; she assumed that he threw it out. “You’ve been so quiet; I knew you were holding something back.” She watched him dully, flexing her fingers and twisting her hands together, waiting for him to continue.

“I have another choice to offer you, now that you are fully coherent again,” he said, and she felt a sudden jolt of sickening panic, a whimper escaping her before she could stop it. He smirked, and even with her vision the way it was, she could tell it was a smirk and not a smile. “I have a pair of your glasses with me. I can return them to you, and help you walk down the hall to another room, where I will give you something to eat. You’ll be able to ask any questions of me that you like, then. But…” He paused for a long moment, and she couldn’t quite suppress a grimace at the thought that the pause was dramatic and deliberate instead of a natural part of his speech. “…you would still need to be restrained, and I wouldn’t give you back your clothing. After all, I can’t have you trying to run away, and I imagine that you’d be far less inclined to make an attempt at escape if you were naked.”

Her hands clenched tightly in impotent, humiliated anger. What difference did he think a hospital gown would make? She remembered the snow outside; it had been ankle deep, and still falling. She couldn’t run away, even if he left every door in the building unlocked and ajar. Tears that burned like acid filled her eyes, and she rubbed them away angrily, biting her lower lip and wrapping her arms around herself.

“Or, I can give you back the gown you were wearing, as well as a pair of underwear and socks, and put you in a wheelchair instead. You wouldn’t need your glasses, as you wouldn’t have to see anything. Though…honestly, you might find it comforting, not being able to see everything going on around you,” he continued. She hesitated for a long moment, flushed and angry and frightened and trying very hard not to let herself begin sobbing again, worried that if she got started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

“I’d l-like to walk,” she managed, finally, cringing at the pleased chuckle this elicited from her tormenter. She heard the soft clicks of a pair of glasses being unfolded, and she looked up when he moved closer to her again. She noticed immediately that the pair of glasses he held were not hers; the frames were sky blue plastic with rounded lenses, instead of the black plastic, square framed pair she was used to. She regarded them skeptically, wincing slightly in preparation for a headache when he settled them on the bridge of her nose, only to blink in surprise as she found that they were her actual prescription.

“A good choice, Rhiannon,” he said, and she looked up at him hesitantly; she was almost unable to force herself to do so, now that she could see him clearly. He smiled back at her, warmly, and the sight of his face made her stomach turn over uncomfortably. There was nothing about him that looked unsettling; he looked cheerful, almost friendly, and he was younger than she’d first thought. Other than faint creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth, he showed no signs of age; his word choices and tone had made her guess that he was in his late forties or early fifties. She looked away from his face abruptly when he slid his hands under her arms, nearly picking her up as he helped her to her feet. Her knees shook, then buckled, and it was only because he hadn’t let go of her that she didn’t fall. She expected him to question her decision to walk, and wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or not when no such questions were forthcoming. 

“I thought those suited you better than your own glasses, and you keep your prescription taped to your bathroom mirror,” he said, lightly, finally letting go of her once she managed to stand on her own again. He tilted her head up again, forcing her to meet his gaze as he smiled. “I imagine, considering what that prescription was, you do that to avoid losing it?” His sentence was punctuated with a little chuckle, and she felt the flush in her cheeks intensify. “You told me that your eyesight was bad, but somehow I always believed you to be exaggerating.” 

He stepped away from her after a moment of silence, and she watched him cross the room and remove his lab coat; there seemed to be a laundry chute in the wall, and she stared for a moment, perplexed. It occurred to her quite suddenly that this wasn’t a real hospital—and of course it wouldn’t be, not with the strange men who had brought her here, and certainly not considering the nature of Krieken himself—and she wondered briefly what this building might have started life as. Her attention was refocused on the doctor as he turned toward her and she got a good look at him for the first time; his white shirt seemed tight around his upper arms, and as he approached, she noted the very slight evidence of strain in the fabric around the buttons of his grey vest. She knew that he was big, but she hadn’t guessed at his strength until now; she would have been happier not knowing, she thought, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Turn around, please,” he said, still standing on the other side of the room. She hesitated for a moment, swaying slightly, then slowly turned her back to him. She felt a chill go through her at the sight of the various pieces of medical equipment; there were several tools that he hadn’t used, most of which she didn’t recognize. She was disappointed to find that the knife he had threatened her with was nowhere to be found; knife fighting wasn’t her strongest point, but her father had taught her enough to make her dangerous. She was so absorbed in this that she didn’t notice that the doctor had come up behind her until his hands came down abruptly on her shoulders, making her gasp and jerk in his grasp as if she’d been shocked. He chuckled, seemingly amused.

“I really did think you’d heard me,” he said, and she found herself beginning to shake again as his hands slid down her arms to her wrists. “I see now that you were absorbed in other things. You needn’t worry; most of these tools I would never use on you. They were for my last…patient, and I never got around to removing them from the room.” He pulled her wrists behind her back as he spoke, and she didn’t think to resist until she felt the first soft cuff slide around her wrist and pull tight. She squirmed then, almost involuntarily, but fell still when he squeezed her wrist so tightly that she felt the bones begin to shift. “That’s better. I am sorry about that, but it wouldn’t do for you to reopen that cut on your wrist so soon after I bandaged it for you,” he added, and she felt her shoulders slump as the second cuff was pulled tight as well.

He reached around her with one hand, gripping her by the opposite arm and turning her gently around so that she was facing him once again. He studied her intently for a moment then smiled in a way that she would have classed as apologetic had the expression been worn by anyone else. She flinched when he lifted a hand towards her face, relaxing only slightly when all he did was smooth her hair.

“I’m afraid I’ve left you looking a bit disheveled, my dear,” he said, and she noted quite clearly when his apologetic smile turned into a smirk. “After lunch, I’ll take you up to my bathroom so that I can get you cleaned up. I’m sure you’ll feel better after that.” He stepped slightly closer to her, and she was abruptly and keenly aware of her helplessness; she felt terribly small in that moment, standing naked and bound in front of him, unable to pull away or even cover herself. He used the tip of one finger to trace the words on her chest, and she felt herself flush; she had forgotten about the writing on her skin, and she felt slightly sick as she realized that more than Dr. Krieken might see it. There had been other men in the house before; who was to say that they were not still there? He answered her question a moment later with one of his own. 

“I do wonder what the ruffians I have in my employ will think upon seeing you in this state…do you think they will appreciate your body as much as I do?” She bit her lip, hard, and looked down as she felt tears beginning to well up in her eyes again, this time in humiliation at the thought of being seen in this state. She blinked hard, trying to stop herself from actually crying, only to have him cup her chin in one hand and lift her head so that she was looking at him once again; she studiously avoided meeting his gaze as he produced another handkerchief from his pocket, gently dabbing at her eyes until they were dry once again. 

“These are all things that you enjoy writing about, you know,” he said, turning her once again, this time so that she faced the door. “And I imagine that—despite the tears—there is some part of you that is enjoying this.” His voice dropped lower, into something close to a purr, and she cringed and tensed as one of his hands slid down over her belly and then farther down, between her legs; she stiffened in shock just long enough that he was able to draw one finger lightly over her sex, only managing to close her legs after he had already pulled his hand away from her. He held that finger in front of her for a moment, laughing softly. 

“You see? It would seem that I am correct in my assumption.” It took her a moment to understand, but she finally did see the wetness gleaming on his fingertip, and felt her stomach do an uncomfortably flip-flop in response. He pulled his hand away a moment later, and to her great horror, she heard the sounds of him sucking briefly on the finger he had used. “I couldn’t do that during the examination, of course; I am a professional. But…” he continued, and she heard the terrible, worrying quaver return to his voice once again. “…considering that we are finished in here, I don’t find it nearly as inappropriate.” His hands moved over her again, finally settling with his left on her left shoulder and his right gripping her right bicep.

“There will be time enough for that later,” he said, quietly, his voice just low enough for her to wonder if he had intended to speak aloud at all. “Come along, Rhiannon,” he added, raising his voice to a normal level once again and guiding her across the room. She stumbled slightly on her second step, her right knee aching and feeling as if it had locked into place; she had been lax with her physical therapy exercises lately, and she was paying the price for that now in the way her knee popped and grated and shook as she walked.

“You know, with the way that leg looks, I may well be doing you a favor tomorrow,” he said, brightly, as he paused at the door to hold it open for her. She felt hysteria beginning to squeeze her chest once again, and it was only with a powerful effort of will that she didn’t burst into tears at the mention of what was to come. “I imagine that walking on it nearly always ends in pain.” She refused to acknowledge him, instead looking nervously out into the hall and finding herself frozen on the threshold of the room.

The hallway itself looked nothing like the sterile, white room they had just occupied; instead, it seemed to be the sort of hallway one would find in the home of an exceedingly wealthy man, with walls paneled in pale wood and a floor made of carefully set marble tiles alternating in colors of cream and gold and polished to a mirror shine so that they reflected the light from softly glowing sconces on the wall. She found the sudden change both incongruous and disconcerting, and for a moment could do little more stare; she was jolted out of her trance as he stepped in behind her and propelled her out into the hall. She stumbled again, her bare feet slapping loudly against the slick flooring and nearly drowning out the quiet click of the door closing behind her. She started to ask something—she wasn’t sure what—only to be shushed by the doctor.

“Save your questions. I promised to answer them as we ate, and you shall have to wait until then. As it is, I have yet to see if you will hold up your end of the deal and walk down the hallway with me,” he said, turning her head so that she was forced to look up at him for a moment until he grinned and released his grip on her in favor of slipping one arm around her shoulders and gripping her other arm, seemingly intending to guide her to their destination. She allowed herself to be led; after all, resistance would do her no good, and she wasn’t at all keen on seeing what the doctor would do if she made a nuisance of herself. It might not have been the brave thing to do, she thought bitterly, but it was the smart one. They passed three doors—two on the right and one on the left—in the empty hall before they came to a stop in front of a fourth. 

She stiffened slightly when Krieken reached for the handle; she could hear very faint murmuring on the other side of the door, and she felt her face begin to flush slightly at the thought of being seen by someone else. She had very little time to consider this, however, as he opened the door and set one of his broad hands at the center of her back to push her inside. She took three quick steps into the room to keep from falling, only to look around and find it quite empty. It seemed to be a nearly obscenely large kitchen, with a room that might once have been a dining room attached to it. 

That room had a grouping of small round tables in it now, and would be able to seat nine people quite comfortably at a time, assuming she had counted correctly. The murmuring came from a small radio that sat on the kitchen counter; she recognized the language it was in quite belatedly as Mandarin Chinese. Her father had spoken it often enough around the house for her to be able to tell the difference between it and Cantonese, and she understood a few simple phrases; she felt a sharp, sudden pang of misery at the thought of her father, and she found herself blinking back tears again as Krieken moved her to one of the chairs and helped her sit down without pinning her bound arms too firmly between herself and the back of the chair. She froze when he lifted the entire chair and turned it to face the door; he moved the weight of her and the sturdy wooden chair with no more effort than she would have expended to carry her nephew’s car seat, and that realization sent another shudder crawling down her spine.

“There, that’s perfect. Now anyone who walks through that door will be able to see you. After all, it is around lunchtime, and I’m sure everyone is getting hungry,” he said, quite cheerfully. He smiled at her, gently resettling her glasses on the bridge of her nose and then cupping her face in both hands for a moment as his smile widened. “Perhaps I’ll let them do more than look, hmm?” His smile turned cruel as he looked down at her, and she felt her blood go cold at the thought of other men touching her; Krieken was bad enough, and she was not at all eager to see what his employees were like.

“I’ll go and get you some ice to suck on first, and if you tolerate that, I’ll get some proper food for you.” He ended this statement with an abrupt, overly-hard pat to her left cheek, making her flinch; when she opened her eyes again, he was across the room in the kitchen. It didn’t seem fair, somehow, that a gigantic psychopath would also happen to be so incredibly quiet and graceful; she kicked the floor in a useless show of anger, only managing to bruise her foot and leave her even more miserable than before. 

She glared at Nathaniel where he stood in the kitchen, fussing with the refrigerator and holding what looked like a heavy glass cup, watching as he finally held it to the dispenser. There was a startlingly loud grinding sound, followed by the clinking of ice on glass for a long moment. He turned abruptly when he finished, and burst into laughter without any obvious reason. She stared at him in uncomfortable silence, beginning to twist her fingers together behind her back as her anxiety mounted.

“Oh, my dear, you should have seen the look on your face! You didn’t think I’d really let anyone else touch you, did you? No, no, I’m much more selfish than that. I want you to be mine, and mine alone,” his said, his voice changing from amused to very serious as he came back over to her, his smile fading into a very slight upward quirk of his mouth on one side. She looked away quickly, fixing her gaze on her own bare feet. For once, he didn’t turn her head so she was forced to look at him again; instead, he lifted her to her feet once again, only to turn her around so that he could pull her into his lap as he sat down, her back pressed against his chest and her bound hands pushing against his stomach. He wrapped both arms around her, holding the cup of ice in one hand as he bent forward slightly so that his body was curled around hers, his chin resting on her shoulder.

“I believe that I promised to allow you to ask me any questions you pleased, yes?” He paused, but not to allow her to answer; instead, he plucked a piece of ice from the glass and held up. She hesitated for a moment, then opened her mouth; he slid it deftly past her lips, one fingertip just barely brushing the tip of her tongue before he withdrew his hand. “I will keep my word, as I always do, but in return I am going to ask you questions, too. If you refuse to answer, that’s fine; I won’t hold it against you, but I won’t answer any more of your questions. Does that sound fair to you?” 

She rolled the ice around in her mouth as it melted, trying to avoid the sensitive spots on her teeth; the enamel had been weak ever since she nearly died of a fever as a young child—her dentist had said something about the heat causing it—and she had always found it hard to eat things that were too cold. Finally, the ice melted; she swallowed the cold water that had accumulated in her mouth, then spoke.

“How…how did you manage all of…” she glanced around the room, wishing she could gesture, “…all of this? I mean, doctors make decent money, but…” she trailed off, biting her lip when he laughed again, the sound warm and genuine. She was already beginning to hate that laugh; nothing so evil should be able to sound so kind. She wanted to squirm, but given her position on his lap she focused instead on remaining completely still. He picked out another chip of ice, popping this one into her mouth as well as if giving her something to do while he answered.

“A good question, my dear, and one with a fairly straightforward answer,” he said, his breath hot against her ear, and she turned her head away slightly. “I was born to a very wealthy family, you see, and becoming a doctor was no special strain on our finances. My father was a…business man, who worked with a particularly interesting network of other such businessmen. I’m afraid I can’t be any more specific on that front without risking an unhappy employer, but you can certainly draw your own conclusions,” he said, smoothly. 

“And, speaking of my employer, I do a variety of work for him. From time to time, he will send a patient to me that is reluctant to speak to him about certain things, and I do have a certain way with people.” He laughed again, and this time despite the inherent warmth of the sound, there was an undercurrent of something dark. She thought briefly, incongruously, of the monster that she was certain had occupied her closet when she was a child; surely, that was what its laugh would have sounded like, if she’d ever heard it. 

“Despite my admittedly unusual abilities and the jobs that I am ordinarily asked to do, I am a very good surgeon. There was…someone very dear to my employer whose life I saved, and he was quite grateful. This,” he added, gesturing with the hand that did not hold the cup of ice, “…is the end result of my family’s own fortune, and my employer’s good will.” He offered her another piece of ice, and she kept her mouth closed until she could see it beginning to melt in his fingers before she opened her mouth. He popped it in quickly, and she nearly choked on the ice when his now-cold fingertips brushed against her bare belly. She curled forward slightly, wishing she could wrap her arms around herself, and flushing when she realized that she’d only managed to push herself more firmly back against him.

“I believe it’s my turn to ask a question, now.” He paused for an alarmingly long moment, then spoke again. “Has anyone ever made you orgasm before, Rhiannon? If so, I want you to describe the experience to me. In detail.” The stress that he put on the word wasn’t lost on her, and she stiffened in his grasp, feeling herself blanch.

A little whimper escaped her as the color drained from her face. The answer to his question was yes, but the circumstance had been so horrible that she didn’t want to admit it. She froze for a long moment, her gaze flicking from one point in the room to another without ever taking anything in; she felt her mouth begin to curve downwards into a grimace as she tried to come up with the proper way to lie. She discarded the idea almost immediately; she was an extremely good liar when she was at her best, but she didn’t think she could manage it now.

“Yes,” she whispered, finally, fixing her gaze on her feet. His hand appeared before her once again, offering another couple of ice chips, and this time she didn’t hesitate before allowing him to place them in her mouth. It gave her a reason to be quiet, to avoid answering his question. She sucked on the ice in silence for a long moment, until the last piece had turned to water and there was nothing more to do than swallow and finish her answer to his question. She gulped, then let out a long, shaky breath.

“It was…it was during my first—only—time,” she forced out, finally, feeling her throat grow tight and her eyes begin to prickle with unshed tears. “It…h-hurt. I was scared, and…c-confused…and afraid, but…I still—“ she broke off abruptly, misery choking off her next word. She swallowed hard a couple times, single, repressed sob jerking her shoulders. “It was the Valium, I think,” she heard herself say, her voice thick with unshed tears. “It always…always made it easier for me to…to come. It was…I thought he would stop if he thought he’d…that I’d…so I touched myself. I didn’t…I didn’t—” she broke off again, this time with a painful, sharp sob that she couldn’t repress as the doctor set the cup of ice on the table next to them, one cold hand resting flat against her stomach with his fingers splayed and the other hand rising until his arm rested across her chest and he could stroke the curve of her shoulder.

“Shh.” He shushed her quietly, but the sound seemed too loud with his mouth so close to her ear, and she made a low sound of dismay, craning her neck to turn her head as far away as she could manage; the hand that had been caressing her arm rose to grip her chin instead, forcing her to look straight ahead once more before sliding down to curl around her throat, holding her in place. “It’s all right, my dear; I’m a doctor. I understand all the lovely ways the body can betray the mind.” For a moment all he did was hold her there as she swallowed hard, trying to get her breathing under control and her crying stopped, and then his hand slid up from her throat to her cheek, his other arm sliding farther around her waist, squeezing more tightly. Fear suddenly overtook misery in her mind as one of his legs crossed over both of hers, pinning her legs between his.

“For instance, when I do this…” he began, and as he spoke his hand moved to settle over her mouth, covering it firmly; a second later, he delicately pinched her nose shut with his thumb and forefinger. A jolt of panic went through her, but she didn’t begin struggling immediately, trying to relax; fighting would only make her run out of oxygen more quickly, and she knew it. “…there is a very good chance that you will experience all the physical signs of arousal. Your nipples will harden, your face will flush, and your clitoris will engorge with blood as you begin to…” he paused for just a second, then spoke directly into her ear, “…get wet. I don’t imagine that you particularly want these things to happen; I think you are far more focused on getting a breath of air than you are on becoming aroused.” 

And he was absolutely right about that; she had never been good at holding her breath, and she was beginning to feel the strain in her chest, the way her heart was beginning to beat more quickly. A few agonizingly long seconds passed, and her lungs began to spasm of their own accord, her chest and belly heaving as she struggled to get a breath in. Another moment passed, long enough that a roar began to build in her ears as the very edges of her vision dimmed; she struggled without consciously intending to, then, her body jerking as she strained against his hold, trying to kick or bite or pull her hands free of the cuffs that held them. 

He was as immovable as stone where he sat behind her, letting the seconds tick away as she jerked and tensed and arched. She wondered if he intended to force her into unconsciousness, and the thought scared her; she had been insensate far too often in the past twelve hours, and she was not eager to have the experience repeated. A weakness was beginning to spread down her limbs at this point, leaving her feeling heavy and clumsy, her struggles slowing. She felt tears beginning to drip from her eyes as the darkness at the edges of her sight seemed to close in—and then he drew his hand away.

She sucked in a huge gasp of air only to let out quickly, almost coughing as she panted, her heart still fluttering wildly against her ribs. She had to fight not to let herself begin sobbing again as he shifted enough to free her legs and slide his own properly underneath hers again; crying would only make it harder to breathe. She shuddered as he slid the hand that had covered her mouth down her body and towards the area between her legs; she clamped her thighs together as tightly as she could, and he shifted his hold on her so that he could slowly work both hands between her knees, gripping her legs and very slowly prying them apart. He laughed quietly as she struggled, fighting to keep her legs together.

“This is not a battle you will win, my dear,” he said, his tone mild and amused. “In this particular position, my arms are stronger than your legs.” And as humiliating as that was, it was also true; despite her best efforts, her legs were slowly yet inexorably spread apart, wide enough that she could feel the cool air of the room against her sex. Her cheeks burned, and she refused to look down at herself, staring resolutely at the wall instead. He kept his hold on one leg, keeping her from being able to do much of anything as his other hand slid up her thigh until he could work one fingertip between the folds of her sex. It was over in an instant; he let go of her other leg and pulled his hand away, allowing her to press her knees tightly together once again. 

“You see?” he said, his tone merry as he swiped the undeniably damp finger across her lips, making her grimace and turn her head away. “Though of course, based on what you’ve told me in our little chats online, I am inclined to wonder if this reaction was something a little more than merely a betrayal of the body,” he added, lowering his voice slightly, his tone becoming conspiratorial. “Well, you’ve answered my question; I assume you have another one for me?” For a moment, his words didn’t register with her; when they finally did, she swallowed thickly and forced herself to speak.

“Are you…going to kill me?” She didn’t like the way her voice sounded as she spoke, soft and high and thick with unshed tears. She swallowed again, then added, “When you’re…done. When I’ve…when I’ve written everything th-that you want me to write.” He made a little sound of surprise, and she felt him straighten up behind her a moment before she was clutched to his chest, his arms wrapped possessively around her as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.

“Oh, oh my dear little…no. No, I will do no such thing,” he murmured, and that shaky, feverish intensity had returned to his voice. There was a brief pause, and when he spoke again his voice was low and his speech was rapid. “You aren’t the first, you know. In this situation, I mean. There have been three other girls before you. I had to…I had to practice, you see. Even in this day and age, people frequently die from being—hamstrung,” he said, hesitating over the word, then spitting it out as if he found it distasteful. 

“I needed to practice. I didn’t want to lose you, you see,” he continued, and his tone was so earnest that it sent a shiver down her spine. “I killed them when I was done, of course, but they weren’t like you. You aren’t…disposable, Rhiannon. You are mine, and I fully intend to keep you with me for the rest of my life.” He was silent and still for a long moment, before he very gently pressed a kiss to the hinge of her jaw, his lips just brushing her skin before he pulled away again. “Is that why you have been so frightened all this time?”

“Is that your question?” she blurted out, shocked by her own audacity and the fact that bitter anger had momentarily got the best of her. She froze, going quiet, barely able to force herself to breathe as she waited for his answer; it came in the form of the tension seeming to drain from his body, his grip on her loosening slightly as he laughed.

“Yes, I think it is,” he said, finally, tracing absent patterns on her belly with one hand as he waited. She shivered and tried to draw away from his touch as she considered her answer. She thought of lying once again, but knew that she would do no better now than she could have before; he had promised no harm would come to her if she refused to answer, but he had made no such promises in the event that she lied to him. 

“No,” she said, finally, reluctantly. His hand stilled, resting lightly over her stomach, jut below her breasts. She waited for a long moment, until he made a questioning sound as if indicating that she should continue. “I’m not…not really afraid of dying. Just th-the pain that…comes before death.” He made another little sound, not quite a laugh, and he slid the palm of his hand over her stomach in slow circles as he responded, as if trying to soothe her.

“A wise fear,” he said, after a moment. “After all, I doubt you have much to fear from whatever might be waiting for you after death, and you have a great deal to fear from me.” His tone stayed light as he said this, as if he wasn’t actively trying to threaten her but merely stating a fact. She shuddered again, trying to bite back another sob but not quite managing to do so. 

“Wh…where are we?” she asked, finally, once it seemed that he had no intention of breaking the silence again. He did laugh, then, a brief sound that was just slightly too proper to be called a derisive snort.

“That one I am afraid I can’t answer directly either. I will say that we have gone quite a bit farther north than your own home, however,” he said, and she could feel him grinning as he pushed his face against her neck once again, breathing in deeply through his nose, making her cringe as she realized he was sniffing her. “Though I will add that I think you’ll recognize where you are on your own in several months, when spring is finally here and I take you outside.” There was a brief pause before he spoke again. “How is your stomach? I know the Phenergan I gave you should keep you from feeling too nauseous, but I also know that it doesn’t always work,” he said, lightly, and she paused to consider the state of her stomach for the first time since she had been released from the table in the other room. 

“It’s…I’m not feeling sick,” she allowed, finally, and he patted her belly almost fondly before he worked his hands under her arms and helped her to her feet as he stood.

“Very good,” he said, moving to stand in front of her and tipping her head back with one hand so that she was looking up at him once again. “You’re beginning to get cold to the touch in places, and I imagine you’ll begin to shiver, soon. Shock—even when it is only mental shock—will do that to a person, and your poor body has been through a great many stresses today,” he said, with a gentle smile that was painfully at odds with his nature as he curved both hands around her shoulders, rubbing her upper arms and back briskly for a moment; she stiffened and looked away from him, not wanting his hands on her and at the same time somewhat grateful for the warmth the friction of his hands against her skin provided. The cool air of the room now felt unreasonably cold against her back where she had been pressed to his body, and she could feel herself beginning to tense; she knew that he was right about the shivering, and she wasn’t looking forward to it.

“I’m going to heat up some chicken broth for you, and then you and I are going to go upstairs to my room so that I can get you into a hot bath; I can’t have you freezing to death, after all,” he remarked, his tone now almost teasing as he maneuvered her back into the chair. He ruffled her hair, smiling tenderly down at her for just a moment before he crossed the room and reentered the kitchen. She watched him for a moment, then glanced briefly at the door. She wasn’t tied to anything, and she imagined that she would be able to make a run for it while he was otherwise occupied—but there was nowhere for her to go. She thought bitterly that it was almost crueler that he hadn’t bound her ankles; she had the physical ability to run, but was still utterly unable to do so. She glared at the floor, biting her lip hard as she felt the first slight tremor creep down her spine as she began to shiver. She stiffened and squirmed in her seat, trying to generate some warmth of her own while knowing full well that this sort of shaking had very little to do with the temperature of the house.

She wasn’t looking forward to making the trip upstairs, either; it would mean more walking through the house, and she doubted that they would avoid all its other occupants indefinitely. She winced at the thought, trying to think of something else and only feeling a growing sense of dread as she contemplated what taking a bath would mean, and what he might have planned for her afterwards. 

She looked up again, startled, when she heard an insistent beeping from the kitchen, only to find him taking a bowl out of the microwave; she watched as he poured its contents into a Styrofoam cup and snapped a plastic lid onto it, and found herself fighting a sudden and overwhelming urge to laugh when she realized that it was the sort of cup that gas station coffee came in, complete with a blurry image of coffee beans and a faded logo printed on it. The absurdity of this man, with all his resources, still purchasing coffee from a gas station finally got the better of her, and she dissolved into helpless, high-pitched giggles. He paused for a moment, staring at her quizzically, and that only worsened the situation; she had absolutely no desire to be laughing, but was finding it impossible to stop; she nearly choked trying to get herself under control, but still the fit continued, until she found herself rocking helplessly back and forth in the chair and barely able to breathe.

“Ah,” he said, finally, crossing the room to stand next to her again, using one hand to wipe away the tears that were streaming down her cheeks as she laughed. “That would be the hysteria.” He simply stood there, looming over her, until fear and misery finally got the better of her and she found that the fit of laughter had faded into another round of heavy sobs. He set the cup on the table and lifted her to her feet once again, holding her against himself and rocking them both gently from side to side until the crying, too, had passed. “I imagine such things will continue for quite a while, I’m afraid,” he murmured, drawing back to produce yet another handkerchief from his pocket and wiping her face carefully before helping her blow her nose once again. She was almost grateful for the help; she knew with miserable certainty that she wouldn’t have been able to hold anything herself at this point. Now that she was no longer caught up in the fit crying or helpless laughter, the shivering had begun in earnest.

“There, now. Have a sip of this; it will help your throat and get you a little warmer,” he said, moving so that she was in front of him once again and lifting the cup from the table to her lips. She reluctantly opened her mouth, and he let the hot broth fill her mouth before he withdrew the cup and allowed her to swallow. She shuddered a little harder as the heat spread down her throat and through her chest, fading much more quickly than she would have liked. The broth itself was almost overly salty, with an unpleasantly bitter undertone; she thought briefly that hospital food was the same no matter where you went, and had to struggle briefly to hold down another round of laughter or crying—she wasn’t sure which. 

“That’s better, isn’t it? I’ll let you have more once we get where we’re going,” he said, still obscenely cheerful as he set one hand in the center of her back and began guiding her towards the door. She was a little unsteady on her feet, and she hunched inward slightly as she walked in a futile effort to stave off the shivers now wracking her body. He stopped her with one hand settled on her shoulder when they reached the door, and she took a nervous half-step backwards when it swung open in front of her.

To her dismay, she was confronted with a large, unhappy looking young man in a dark, long sleeved shirt and black slacks, a holster hanging from his belt. He gaped at her for just an instant before his face returned to its previous expression as he looked up at Krieken over her head.

“My apologies, Doctor. I didn’t know you were in here,” he said, somewhat stiffly, and she paled slightly when she realized that this man sounded slightly afraid. She wasn’t always good at reading expressions, but she could read the tone of a person’s voice quite easily; the fact that an armed man was so distinctly uncomfortable in Dr. Krieken’s presence was not at all reassuring. The man stepped to one side, holding the door open with one hand; the doctor guided her out into the hallway, his hand returning to settle in the middle of her back.

“Not at all, Simon,” he said, mildly, and she recognized the name as belonging to the man who had drugged her in the truck. She looked up at him sharply, and noted that he was studiously avoiding her gaze. “I was just getting my patient something to eat,” he added, and she heard his fingers tapping on the Styrofoam cup somewhere behind her. “You did a very nice job in retrieving her, you and the others. Though I do wonder…who was it that allowed her to cut herself on the plastic restraints?” Simon’s face grew a shade paler, and he stiffened slightly.

“That would be Joseph, doctor. He was…in a bit of a hurry as he thought the neighbors might have noticed something, and I’m afraid he put them on too tightly,” he said, shortly, before falling silent as his mouth settled into a thin, hard line. There was a quiet, thoughtful sound from behind her.

“Joseph…I see. Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know,” he said, and the younger man relaxed visibly. Krieken shifted behind her, as if about to start walking, only pause again. “Oh, and Simon?” The man froze, halfway into the room, the door falling heavily against his hip as he turned to face the doctor again. “You made a good decision, with the sedative you gave her. Strong enough to do what it needed to do, yet quickly processed and removed from the system. I would have chosen the same one.” The man visibly relaxed, his face regaining color as he smiled hesitantly. 

“Thank you, doctor,” he said, seeming genuinely grateful as he finally stepped into the kitchen and allowed the door to fall shut behind him. Krieken laughed quietly, then gave her a gentle nudge to get her walking again.

“I imagine you expected him to spend a great deal more time staring at you,” he remarked after a moment of walking in silence, his hand still resting on her back. She nodded jerkily, remaining quiet and trying to focus on walking without tripping or allowing the shivers to get her off balance. “Simon is one of the smarter men I hired. Smart, but not terribly gifted with common sense. Someone gave the poor boy the ridiculous idea that I would torture him to death if he angered me,” he said, with another laugh. “Of course, I would never do that. There’s no point in it for one thing—how will he learn his lesson if he’s dead?—and for another, it greatly cuts down on the number of people willing to work with and for me.”

She was struck by the casual way he explained this, as if it were something completely normal, and she worried her lower lip between her teeth and said nothing as they made their way down the hall. Eventually, they turned a corner into another hall, a very short one that opened into what had to be the front hall. There was a staircase there that led up to the second floor, and she was momentarily stunned by the sheer grandeur of the room; she didn’t have much time to contemplate it, however, before she found herself in front of the stairs themselves and facing the truly daunting climb. 

Her right knee still hurt, and with the shivers currently coursing through her, she wasn’t entirely sure that she would make it all the way to the top. Still, the thought of being carried up was far more aversive than the pain of attempting to do so on her own, and so she hesitantly stepped up onto the first stair. The carpet that covered them was thick and very soft, and somewhat mitigated the jolt that traveled up through her leg as her weight came down on the slightly twisted limb. She winced, then brought her left foot up to join the right.

Krieken, for his part, didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry; he didn’t attempt to force her to move more quickly, nor did he offer help in any way other than the constant, steadying hand on her back. She found herself exhausted by the time they reached the top of the stairs, her aching knee threatening to give out and her shivering having worsened slightly in response to the pain in her leg.

“Very good, Rhiannon. I wondered if you would be able to make the climb in the state you’re in, especially with that knee. I imagine that a long soak will do it good,” he said, his hand sliding up along her back to settle on the back of her neck, his thumb rubbing the curve of her shoulder for a moment before he carefully steered off down the hallway that branched off to the right. She refused to respond, blinking back tears again as she stared at the carpeted floor, trying to count the steps they took as they walked and failing; her frayed nerves seemed to prevent her from focusing too sharply on any one thing, and she was left to struggle with a wordless anxiety as they neared the room at the end of the hall. “And here we are,” he said, his tone still bright as he opened the door an ushered her inside.

The bedroom gave her pause, in which she gaped open mouthed at all it contained for a moment, too stunned to feel frightened; it was a lovely room, with walls and furniture of the same pale wood that made up the rest of the house. There was a woman’s vanity set on one side of the room, with three mirrors set into the carved frames attached to a dresser; a small, armless chair was set in front of this, and there was a comb, a brush, and a hand mirror set on top of the desk; everything there looked worryingly new, as if he had purchased it recently and with her in mind. 

The bed was the second thing to draw her eye, given that it seemed to have odd dimensions; after a moment, she realized that this was because it was two separate mattresses set on the same set of box springs; one mattress was substantially smaller than the other, and she realized with an uncomfortable jolt that there was an I.V. stand next to that side of the bed; somehow she had expected to be confined to a cell or small room of her own, and the thought of sleeping with Krieken hadn’t occurred to her. The bed itself had a beautifully carved frame, with a canopy that connected the tops of the bedposts without draping down over the sides; the morbidly practical side of her suggested that this was so that he could get up quickly if he had to, and that her I.V. line wouldn’t get tangled with anything. 

By this time, Krieken had begun to gently guide her through the room and to the door on the far side, and her fear had returned full force; she allowed herself to be moved, but she was reluctant to step through the door and into the dark room beyond it. The doctor simply propelled her into the room with the hand that still rested on the back of her neck, leaving her the choice of moving forward or being knocked over. She felt cool tile under her feet an instant before the light turned on, and when it did, she was again stunned by the sight. It was abundantly clear that he had not been lying about being an exceedingly wealthy man, and she had the bitter thought that clearly, contrary to what her Saturday morning cartoons had taught her, crime paid very well.

The bathtub was sunken into the floor, and large enough for more than two people; though, she amended that thought as Krieken stepped past her to turn on the water; it was just large enough for two people to sit comfortably apart if one of them was his size. It was also impressively deep; she guessed that the water would come up to her chin if he let it fill almost all the way up. Sitting on the opposite edge of the tub were three startlingly incongruous objects: a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s rose-scented liquid soap, a 79 cent bottle of V05 conditioner, and a plastic water bottle that she would have bet held a mixture of vinegar and water and seemed to have a few sprigs of thyme in it. She blinked at both of these things, then looked at him again, feeling suddenly sick.

She only mentioned once, in a very off-hand way, the things she used in the shower; clearly he had not only remembered, but cared enough to ensure that he had the exact same things on hand. He was certainly insane—he would have to be, to be in this line of work and to have had her kidnapped in the middle of the night and dragged all the way here, wherever here was—but he was also very careful and methodical; the combination was worrisome in the worst sort of way, and she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot and took a half step back as he rose and turned towards her with a smile.

“It will take a while to fill up. Come back to the other room with me,” he said, firmly, turning her around again and guiding her back out of the room. She stared at the floor as they walked, and as such was startled when they came to an abrupt halt; she ended up running into the edge of a window seat that she hadn’t seen on their first entry to the room, as she had been so distracted by the other things the room contained. Krieken sat down first, settling himself back against the wall, setting the cup aside before he drew her up and onto the window seat along with him, spreading his legs so that he could pull her back against himself and wrap his body around hers once again. 

She squirmed slightly, only to fall abruptly still when he made a little, strained sound and she realized what it was her bound hands were rubbing against as she struggled. He pulled her back against him a little more tightly then, one heavy arm settling across her hips; she hated to be this close to him, and hated the touch of his arm against her skin, but he was very warm compared to the rest of the room, and the warmth was welcome in the face of the little shivers that still shook her. He held the cup up to her mouth again after a moment, and this time she was allowed a few deep swallows before it was set aside. The warmth that spread through her this time lasted a little longer than it had before, and she relaxed very slightly. She stiffened again a moment later when he set the cup aside and began lightly stroking the length of her throat with his fingertips.

“So beautiful,” he murmured, and she bit her lip, her fear growing as the hand that wasn’t caressing her throat moved slowly over her ribs, tracing each bone before dropping down to the next, sweeping gently down to her hipbone before he splayed his hand out again, just below the slight swell of her stomach and just above the dark hair at the apex of her thighs. 

“You’re exquisite like this; helpless and frightened and teetering on the border between tension and exhaustion. Lovely,” he added, pressing a quick, light kiss to her cheek. The hand that had rested so low on her belly pulled away abruptly as he picked up the cup again, tilting her head back with his free hand as he lifted the container to her lips. She drank willingly; as long as he was busy feeding it to her, it meant that his hands were occupied with that rather than anything more sinister. She automatically licked a bit of the broth from her lip as he set the cup aside only to grimace once again at the undertone of bitterness—and it was that taste combined with a slowly growing feeling of weakness that alerted her to the fact that not everything was as it seemed.

“Y…you drugged me,” she said, wincing at the sound of her own voice; it was slurred, and her tone was incensed and accusatorial. He laughed, and she felt the rumbling sound move through her from where his chest was pressed to her back. 

“Of course I did. I can’t have you properly restrained in the tub without risking damage to you or to the restraints, and if you struggle there is a good chance that you will injure yourself, me, or both of us. This was the safest option,” he assured her, nuzzling into her neck, his fingers working slowly over her body, seeking out the spots that made her shivering grow worse.

“It’s not…it isn’t…” she struggled with the words, finding it suddenly hard to form a sentence. “ ‘s not safe,” she managed, finally, and he chuckled again, his hands gently parting her legs—which she didn’t have the strength to fight, this time—so that he could run his fingertips over the soft, sensitive skin of her inner thighs. She tried to squirm or pull away, but she found she couldn’t do all that much; she finally went limp in defeat, closing her eyes so that she at least didn’t have to see what he was doing.

“It is, I assure you. It won’t interact badly with anything else that I’ve given you, though it will make you very tired for a few hours. You can sleep it off, once you’re out of the bath,” he said, softly, his hands creeping slowly up her thighs to her sex. She whimpered, dismayed and confused by the myriad sensations flooding through her as he finally touched her, one finger dragging lightly across her opening; she stiffened and was horrified to find her hips trying to arch up of their own accord, though she couldn’t do much more than tilt them slightly forward. “Isn’t this nice, my dear? I’m sure it feels good, finally relaxing after being so on edge,” he said. To her surprise, the hand that had touched her withdrew, moving up to her belly again. His other hand shifted to her chest, tugging lightly at her slowly hardening nipples; she tried to draw her legs together once his hand moved, only to find that her muscles seemed too tired—or too weak—for her to be able to do so.

“Please,” she managed, after a moment of struggling to get her mouth to properly for the word. “P-please, stop.” It didn’t have any real power behind it, and it sounded flat and weak in her own ears as soon as it left her lips. He laughed, not quite as softly this time, and she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“I’m afraid I can’t help myself,” he remarked, and she tried and failed to twist away from the feeling of his breath against her ear, his hands moving restlessly over her, tracing the edges of her body just lightly enough to make her shudder and squirm in his lap. The room seemed to spin slowly each time she opened her eyes, but it came into focus after a moment; her only problem was that it was hard to keep her eyes open; she felt almost overwhelmed by his touch alone, and the sight of the room or of his hands on her body was too much for her to take in. She felt herself beginning to drift away after a long moment, despite her dismay at the idea of being unconscious yet again, and it was only sudden movement behind her that jolted her awake again.

She felt herself carefully moved and repositioned, Krieken’s warmth vanishing as he stood; she gasped and opened her eyes in shock when she felt her bare back make contact with the wall that he had been leaning against; it was warmer than the surrounding wall, she imagined, but it still seemed cold to the touch. She looked over towards the doctor after a moment, and felt another uncomfortable jolt of adrenaline shoot through her, strong enough that even the sedative he’d given her wasn’t enough to suppress it; he was clearly in the process of undressing, his vest already removed and set on the window seat next to her. The fear abated after a moment, leaving only a milder sort of misery in its wake as she watched him quickly and carefully undo the line of buttons on his shirt, sliding out of it and folding it in a series of deft motions that her bleary eyes couldn’t follow before setting it aside as well.

She was distracted by the shape of his body for a moment; he seemed almost like an unfinished sculpture, still all sharp lines and hard, flat planes with none of the curves or softness that a human body should have. She shuddered and looked away for a long moment, refusing to look when she heard the sound of a belt buckle clinking, only reluctantly turning her head to face him once again when she heard the slight creak of the floor as he stepped forward. 

She couldn’t stifle the little, breathy sound of fright she made when she saw that he was naked and half-hard; she felt more than slightly ill, and had to close her eyes again as he joined her on the window seat once again, his hands gripping her legs for just long enough to pull them together once again before he settled himself above her, straddling her thighs. She squeezed her eyes even more tightly shut when he carefully moved her so that she was leaning forward, resting against his chest, before he reached behind her. After a moment of fumbling, the cuffs slid free of her wrists; her arms dropped forward to hang limply at her sides, and she made a muffled sound of discomfort at the sharp ache that this sent through her elbows. He allowed her to lean back against the wall, then, standing up once again.

“I’m going to pick you up now,” he said, softly, sliding one hand under her knees and wrapping the other around her upper back, his hand curving around her ribcage. His skin was warm where she was pressed to his chest, and she unconsciously pressed the side of her face against his shoulder as he walked. When the lighting seemed to change, she reluctantly opened her eyes again; they were in the bathroom once again, the bathtub now mostly filled. 

He stepped in carefully, then set her slowly down in the water. She broke out in goose bumps, a particularly violent shiver going through her as her chilled body came in contact with the hot water. She had been right; the water was almost up to her chin at this point; she contemplated sliding under the water and attempting to drown herself as he turned off the tap, only to sadly reject the idea. It would take too long, and the only thing she imagined that she would be able to do would be giving herself a headache from getting water in her sinuses. The water level rose as he moved and then sat down behind her, and she groaned her displeasure as he pulled her firmly back against him.

“Just relax,” he murmured, carefully lifting her glasses off her nose, setting them on one edge of the tub. The room instantly unfocused, leaving her effectively blind; she let out a harsh breath and went limp in defeat, slumping back against him. He shifted slightly, his hands sliding up to settle across her shoulders, his fingers working into the tense knots of muscle there; she stiffened slightly, but the drug combined with his talented hands forced her to relax again after a moment. “Your chiropractor mentioned in his—admittedly brief—notes about you that you were one of the most tense patients he had ever worked on. I thought he might be exaggerating, but if you still manage to be tense after what I gave you, I am inclined to agree with him.” One of his hands crept up the back of her neck, holding her hair out of the way as he rubbed the thumb of the other hand from her shoulder up the back of her neck to the base of her skull. 

“All the writing you do, no doubt; spending that much time hunched over a computer can cause some truly impressive tension headaches.” He continued talking, but she found it hard to focus on what he was saying, consumed as she was with trying to ignore how good his touch felt; she wanted to push him away, or at least to pull away from him. She pressed one hand back against his belly, pushing as hard as she could manage—which, as it turned out, wasn’t all that hard at all. He laughed softly, smoothing his hands down along her arms until he could grasp both of her wrists and reposition her hands in her lap. 

“No need for that, schatje,” he admonished, and she shuddered at his use of that particular term of endearment; he pulled her back a little tighter against him, one hand looping around her waist and pinning her arms to her sides and the other wrapping across her chest, his hand settling on her shoulder. She squirmed for a moment, then slowly stilled again when she realized that he didn’t seem to have any intention of moving anytime soon. She felt her shivers beginning to slow, finally, and became aware of the fact that she was crying a moment later when she felt a tear slide down her cheek.

“Let me go,” she pleaded, her voice catching in her throat, slurred and almost too quiet to hear. “Jus’ let me go. Won’t tell anyone. Promise,” she managed, only partially aware of the fact that she was speaking out loud. He sat in silence behind her, the hand that rested on her shoulder moving slightly down so that he could caress the line of her collarbone until she fell quiet once again; she didn’t know what else to say, and it was too hard to focus for her to try to come up with anything. Finally, after a long moment of drifting somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, he spoke.

“I will never let you go.”

She wasn’t entirely sure how long he held her there, unmoving; the sound of his breathing was slow and rhythmic, but after a moment she picked up on a slight stutter in it, as if he were crying softly. She was confused, at first, until she realized it was the sound of her own breath that she was hearing; she squeezed her eyes more tightly shut for a moment, her body stiffening, but the tension drained out of her with a shudder only a second later as she felt everything receding into darkness around her. 

She only came fully around when he moved behind her, shifting her forward slightly so that she was sitting up without leaning against him. She felt unbalanced, somehow, and for just a moment she was convinced that she was falling, or that the world was dropping out from under her; her eyes flew open as she gasped, her hands jerking out to her sides as if to catch herself only to strike smooth porcelain and drop back into the water. Her right wrist and left hand hurt, and the pain seemed to drag her back into her body; she realized after a moment that he had removed the bandage that had covered the small mark the plastic zip tie had left. 

The cut on her wrist looked puffy and irritated from the hot water, and there was a spreading bruise on the back of her hand, dark around the puncture wound the needle had left but fading to a red-brown as it reached towards her arm. She absorbed in studying these marks that she wasn’t aware he had moved again until he touched her shoulder, sending a little shock through her. She tried to turn to face him, but her body felt too loose and clumsy, muscles tensing and stretching too long after she wanted them to, her feet slipping against the bottom of the tub and finding no purchase.

“Shh,” he shushed her, the hand on her shoulder moving as shifted her slightly towards the edge of the tub, kneeling beside her now instead of behind her. “It’s all right. I am going to tilt you backwards, now, don’t fight me. Just relax and let me move you.” She thought about closing her eyes again as his hand moved to settle between her shoulder blades, the other coming to rest on her stomach, just below her breasts; she left them open, in the end, gazing up at him as he tilted her back far enough that the water crept up the sides of her face, covering her ears as lapping at the corners of her mouth. 

She couldn’t see him clearly, not without her glasses, and her vision was clouded further by tears and the drug he had given her; she could still see it when he smiled, however, the white smudge of his teeth suddenly visible as his lips parted slightly. She wondered for just a moment if he intended to push her all the way underwater, to hold her at the bottom of the tub until the life left her along with the air in her lungs—but of course he didn’t. He sat her up after a moment, and she felt sick as her relief mingled painfully with disappointment. 

The water dripped into her eyes, and she did close them then, her shoulders slumping as her head fell forward. She allowed herself to be maneuvered without resistance, and he turned her carefully around in the water. She did flinch when his hands smoothed over her hair, squeezing some of the water out of it before pausing and sliding back down to cup her face. She opened her eyes reluctantly after a moment, only to find herself gazing directly into his eyes a scant few inches from her face, his breath hot against her lips.

“You are…” he began, and she bit her lower lip, frightened, when his voice faltered and faded. He held her there for a painfully long moment, his eyes never leaving hers, until—quite abruptly—he released her and turned away. She fell backwards in slow motion, her back hitting the opposite wall of the tub with a dull thump that she didn’t feel as she watched him turn away, reaching for the bottle of conditioner that she had seen on the edge of the tub earlier. She relished the brief moment where there was no part of her in contact with him, and felt her anxiety mounting even through the heavy effects of the sedative when he turned back towards her with the bottle in hand.

She made a quiet sound, somewhere between a whimper and a sob, when he shifted and pulled her back into their original position, with him resting against the edge of the tub and her seated between his legs with her back to him. She closed her eyes again, not bothering to fight down the urge to cry this time, letting her tears drip from her cheeks into the tub. She tensed for just a second, resisting, when she felt his hands on her again; one settled under her chin and tried to tip her head back, succeeding after just a moment when she found herself too tired to put up any more of a fight. 

His other hand ran through her hair, his fingers slick and smelling of coconut from the conditioner, and a little—highly unwanted—shiver of pleasure crept down her spine as his second hand joined the first. She felt as if something that had been coiled very tightly in her chest was being slowly unwound, and knew exactly what it was; she had been trembling in the grip of her own fight or flight reflex through most of the day and in the same period of time, four different drugs—only one of which she knew the name and true purpose of—had been given to her. Her body had been pushed far past its limits, and she was left feeling empty and far too tired to continue offering even a token resistance. She sat still, her eyes closed and her face tilted up towards the ceiling, and let him do as he pleased. 

His hands were gentle as they worked through her hair, his fingertips rubbing circles against her scalp and down the back of her neck until he could press his thumbs firmly against the base of her skull and work any remaining tension out of her neck. She let him tilt her head forward again, losing herself in the steady, hypnotic sensations and the familiar, comforting smell of coconut, the rest of her world fading into the background. She didn’t realize that she had almost fallen asleep until sound seemed to rush back to her suddenly, dragging her out of her head; the sound had been a low, prolonged groan, and at first she thought it had been the doctor behind her; a second later, when he began to laugh she realized—to her horror—that the sound had come from her. Heat rose in her face, and he leaned forward, curving his body around hers once again, making her feel suddenly claustrophobic.

“I am glad you are enjoying yourself, my dear,” he purred, and she shuddered at the feeling of his breath against her ear. “This does bring to mind another question I have for you, though, if you are able to answer. Have you always been so delightfully sensitive?” He punctuated his question by running the fingertips of one hand down the back of her neck and along her spine. Her body arched as the frustrating, familiar jolt of sensation shot through her like a bolt of lightning, her hands flexing and her fingers curling in towards her palms. He kept her there for a moment, frozen and unable to move or breathe deeply as his fingers skated across the almost-painfully sensitive skin of her back, until she let out an unwilling, horrified little moan. His hand returned to her scalp, then, leaving her to slowly relax once again.

“I…think so,” she managed, finally. “ ‘s the only way mom could get me back to sleep, when I had night terrors. Rubbing my back, I mean. ‘n then I guess it got…worse, after I got older, ‘cause no one touched me at all other than when it was obliga…obli…” she huffed, then changed her word choice, ‘obligatory’ proving too hard for her to get out, “…when I had to hug ‘em cause it was expected, for three years after we moved. Wouldn’t let ‘em.” Her voice was still slurred, her tongue feeling leaden and her lips narcotic-numb. “Guess I missed human contact, a bit, cause I know ‘m too sensitive now.” 

He laughed again, and she felt her guts twist painfully at the sound; this laugh wasn’t the usual, incongruously warm sound he usually produced. This was a low, cruel sound that made her think of monsters again; she shuddered, visibly, and he slid her slightly forward until he could tip her head back into the water, one steadying hand under her arm and the fingers of the other running through her hair, helping to rinse it clean before he sat her up again, squeezing the water out of her hair once again before he pulled her firmly back against his chest, gripping her with his knees again to hold her there as he reached off to the side. When she heard the pop of a plastic lid being opened and smelled roses, she knew it was the soap she had seen earlier; she remembered the dream-induced sensation of falling from a few minutes—or had it been longer than that?—ago, and she bit her already sore lower lip hard.

“What a precious little thing,” he murmured against her ear, and she opened her eyes at the sound of the drain being opened. The level of water in the tub seemed to be rapidly decreasing, dropping lower each time she blinked, and she wondered just how long her eyes remained closed each time. He closed the drain abruptly when the water no longer covered her breasts, leaving her confused and feeling suddenly cold again now that the heat of the water had receded. She watched, dully, as he slipped his other arm around her as well, just long enough to pour some of the soap from to bottle into the cupped palm of his other hand before he set it aside again. 

She flushed and shifted against him as he rubbed his slick hands over her chest, paying special attention to the area below her collarbones and above her breasts; she watched the soap and water turn dark with ink as he scrubbed the words he had written there off her skin, but noted dully that it did nothing to make her feel cleaner. She thought about closing her eyes when his hands dipped down to cup her breasts, but something stopped her; her breasts were small, not even a handful to him, and she was momentarily transfixed by the sight of his fingers spreading over them. She felt suddenly very small, and she finally did close her eyes as he rolled his thumbs over her nipples.

He shifted his attention abruptly, his hands leaving her chest as he bent her forward slightly. He rubbed at the back of her neck, wiping away the words there before his hand slid down between her shoulder blades to scrub at the last remaining bit of ink, his touch making her twitch and shudder as he worked. His hands moved down her left arm next, and he made a point of taking her hand in both of his; she opened her eyes again and turned to look at what he was doing, watching as his fingers worked over her palm and between her own fingers. He lowered her hand carefully into her lap once again when he was finished, shifting his attention to her other arm.

She winced slightly as he cleaned the puffy, raw wound on that wrist, the soap stinging as it was rubbed over the scrape. He spent an inordinate amount of time on her right hand, rubbing his thumbs over the callouses on her palm and the so-called writer’s bump on her middle finger, a callous formed from years of a pencil or pen resting against the same spot. She realized, in a sudden and unexpected burst of clarity and insight, that this was his way of showing admiration. She bit her lip and grimaced at the thought, grateful when he settled that hand back in her lap as well. She was surprised, however, when his hands slipped under her arms as if to lift her up.

“I need you to try to stand so that I can set you on the edge of the tub. I have to wash the rest of you, now,” he said, quietly, and she struggled to get her feet under her as he stood. She managed, after a moment, and was relieved to find that her right knee no longer hurt as badly as it had earlier; if it had, she would have stumbled and quite possible fallen and hit her head. As it was, he gently turned her around and guided her backwards with one hand against her shoulder and the other on her hip until the backs of her legs struck the edge of the tub; she sat down hard, a bit surprised, and found herself blinking hazily up at him once again, dripping soapy water onto the tile floor of the bathroom. 

He smiled at her, picking up the bottle of soap again, and she looked away quickly; she couldn’t see anything else of the bathroom, really, but anything was better than looking up at him. She did jerk, startled, when his hands—now slick with soap once more—slid across her ribs; one moved to settle on her belly, the other on her lower back, both of them rubbing gently. He was more thorough then he had to be, she thought bitterly, and he seemed to relish the quiet, involuntary sounds he was able to draw from her as his fingers found and teased the various ticklish spots on both her front and back. She thought about trying to kick him, wondering if he would fall and crack his head open; she would leave him unconscious in the tub to drown and—her thoughts ground to a shuddering stop, halted by the memory of the fact that there was no place for her to go, and no way to escape. Besides that, she doubted that she could kick him hard enough to knock him down even if she wanted to.

“You might be more comfortable laying back for this,” he commented lightly, his hands smoothing down her body, his thumbs tracing the creases where her thighs met her hips. She hesitated for a moment, then realized he was offering her a way to position herself where she wouldn’t have to look at him; she laid back quickly, then, hissing softly at the feeling of cold tile against her skin. She stared up at the ceiling as he slid her forward slightly so that her backside was at the very edge of the tub, her breathing going ragged as her face twisted up in misery. He began with her left foot, lifting it out of the water with one hand and dripping more of the liquid soap onto it with the other before pressing both thumbs firmly into the arch of her foot. She stiffened slightly, a nearly pained whimper forcing its way out of her throat as the pressure lessened and he began caressing the appendage, his touch just light enough to make her shiver and squirm. 

“Is there any part of you that isn’t this sensitive, Rhiannon?” he questioned, not quite laughing but clearly amused. She blinked frustrated tears out of her eyes, worrying her aching lower lip between her teeth as his hands moved slowly up her leg, working the soap into a lather as he went.

“Hands,” she gasped out, after a moment, the only truthful answer she had. It seemed as if her body willingly betrayed her now that she had someone touching her, every part of it achingly hypersensitive except for her hands. She flexed her fingers almost without realizing she was doing it, curling her hands into uselessly fierce fists at her sides, her knuckles scraping against the grout between the tiles of the floor. He did laugh, then, his own hands ceasing their upward progress just slightly above her knee and shifting his attention to her other foot. She squeezed her eyes shut, then, letting him wash her without any further comment or protest, until she felt him splash a handful of water across her thighs, followed quickly by a drizzle of cold soap.

“…can wash m’self,” she muttered, unhappily, squirming against the wet tile and trying to press her legs together even as he forced them very carefully apart. Finally, one of his hands rested flat against her inner thigh while the other worked over the rest of it, briskly rubbing across the rapidly cooling skin there before slowing, his fingers tracing whorls and abstract patterns through the soap there. She wished that his touch didn’t have such an effect on her, though she guessed that her shaking came as much from fear as from the sensation itself.

“Oh, I’m certain you could, my dear,” he all but cooed, his tone condescending. It changed when he spoke again, becoming lower and more intense. “But I won’t let you. I’m going to take care of you, Rhiannon. The only thing you will ever have to do for yourself—and, admittedly, for me—is write.” This pulled a soft, hiccupping sob from her as his hands moved to her other thigh; it made sense, in a horrid sort of way, as giving her any control or will of her own at all would inevitably lead to some form of rebellion. She knew herself well enough to be sure of that.

She was pulled from her thoughts by another splash, this time over the thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs. She shuddered as the water dripped down over her sex, followed by more of the cold soap, and she tried again to press her thighs together. It wasn’t of any use, however; he insinuated himself quickly between her legs, forcing them to spread almost painfully wide to accommodate his own broad shoulders.

“Don’t.” That single, strained, desperate whisper was all she could muster when she felt his fingertips slide into the now-soapy curls above her sex, scrubbing gently. His other hand settled low on her belly, his fingers splayed, holding her hips down against the tile as he washed her. He pressed down harder as his other hand slid lower, fingers running lightly along the lips of her sex; her hips jerked of their own accord, and she let out a horrified gasp at the little shocks of pleasure that spread out from each place his fingers touched. She whimpered, still struggling weakly, her legs squeezing uselessly against his shoulders as he slowly rubbed the palm of his hand across her sex, finished the motion my rubbing her clitoris lightly between his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger. 

“St…stop,” she breathed, tears trickling from her eyes once again; some small part of her was amazed that she had any water left in her, with all the crying she had done. As if in response, his fingers slid downward once again, his index finger circling her entrance, not quite pushing in. She tensed, waiting for the uncomfortable feeling of fullness that would follow if he did slide it into her, only relaxing when his hands left her body entirely. She opened her eyes again, reluctantly, blinking as her watering eyes stung.

“All right. For now,” he conceded, standing up; he loomed over her, and she shifted as if to draw away from him before he stooped and scooped her carefully into his arms, drawing her back into the bathwater as he sat down, rubbing his hands over her body to wipe away the soap. “After all,” he added, speaking into her ear once more. “I still have other parts of you to wash.” 

She felt suddenly cold despite the heat of the water when his lips curved into a smile as he pressed them briefly to her cheek. She offered no resistance as he lifted her again, until he guided her to the edge of the tub, placed a hand against the back of her neck, and began to bend her over. She tried to struggle, then, but it did absolutely nothing; in the end, she simply curled one arm up so she could hide her face in the crook of her elbow instead of letting it rest against the tile. His hand moved from her neck to her lower back, holding her firmly in place as he poured soap across her thighs and upturned backside.

She felt herself tense as his hand began working its way up the back of one thigh, going even more rigid when she felt him drag his fingernails lightly through the lather he had created, goosebumps prickling across her body in response to the sensation. He smoothed his hand back across the area after a moment, wiping the soap away, and she heard a short, sharp sound of surprise.

“Did I scratch you too hard, Rhiannon?” he demanded, sounding almost worried, and she could have laughed at the ridiculousness of both his statement and his tone. She made a strangled sound into the skin of her arm instead, refusing to answer at first. He stood up quickly, then, bending over her, stroking her hair and brushing the wet strands behind her ear. “Did I hurt you?”

“…no,” she finally said, reluctantly, and he let out a long, slow breath. She felt his body relax where it was still pressed against her, and she grimaced when he kissed the outer shell of her ear before scraping his teeth lightly over the skin there.

“That’s good,” he whispered hotly, his tongue tracing the curve of her ear after he spoke, making her shudder. “I should have known. You have astonishingly sensitive skin; it seems that I left welts, even from such a gentle touch.” She shifted between him and the edge of the tub, feeling the hard edge of it digging into her hips and trying to focus on that instead of the feeling of his hardness pressed against her from behind. He pulled away after a moment, leaving her feeling cold again, and his hand settled on the small of her back once more.

“You’ll have to forgive my…slight overreaction, my dear; I was concerned that I had accidentally broken my promise—regarding the fact that I wouldn’t hurt you—and I take oath-breaking very seriously,” he said, mildly, his tone apologetic and back to its usual, neutral state as his free hand began soaping her other thigh. She made a low, bitter sound in response; she wasn’t sure if he was mocking her with his current gentleness, or if there truly were two distinct parts of his personality, the torturer and the nurturer. She opened her eyes briefly, blinking rapidly, trying to dispel the thought as she focused on the grout between the white-grey tiles, the only thing she was able to clearly see in her current position. 

She jerked slightly, surprised, when the hand on her thigh slid up and the hand on her back moved down, both coming to rest on her backside. He squeezed the soft flesh there for a moment, then began to rub and knead the area; she squirmed and whimpered in dismay, unable to tell in her current state whether the sensation was pleasure or not.

“Tell me, Rhiannon,” he began, softly, his soapy hands working slowly inward as he spoke. She gasped when he finally spread her open, one thumb sweeping across the small, puckered hole; her hips jerked forward against the edge of the tub in a useless attempt to get away, and her hands clenched into fists once again. “Has anyone—other than the gastroenterologist you went to see, of course—ever touched you here? Or am I the first?” There was an underlying note of eagerness in his voice that made a small part of her want to lie, to tell him that he wasn’t; still, the larger, saner portion of her mind dissuaded her from doing so. She didn’t want to make him angry by lying, not now.

“You…you’re th’ f…first,” she said, her voice coming out far softer and more frightened than she intended, sounding tiny in the confines of the little space between her arm and the floor. He was silent for a moment, and she thought that he might not have heard her; she was considering repeating herself when he finally spoke.

“I…I have to confess, I am very excited by that,” he said, his voice low and his tone almost conspiratorial. “Being the first person to touch the Composer like this…well. I am truly honored,” he added, his thumb rubbing small circles around the sensitive skin, making her stiffen and press her fingernails harder into her palms; she was frightened, convinced that at any moment he would thrust his thumb into her, and the thought had tears welling up in her eyes again. His use of her nickname did nothing to soothe her frazzled nerves, nor did his near reverent tone. He did nothing of the sort, however, though he did torment her by trailing his fingertips lightly back and forth across the hole, the stimulation just enough to leave her ashamed, feeling dirty and too sensitive. 

She was grateful when he stopped, her body sagging limply against the edge of the tub for a moment until he worked his arms around her once again, pulling her back into the tub and settling her against the wall instead of against him. The water was beginning to cool, and she could feel the uncomfortable spreading tension in her chest that suggested she would begin shivering again soon; she didn’t have much time to dwell on this, however, as he opened the drain once again. She watched the water, now murky with soap, begin to recede; she closed her eyes after a moment, crossing her arms over her belly and letting her head loll back. The next thing she knew, the tub was empty and the doctor was pulling her away from the edge of it, settling her in the middle of the tub instead as he stood up and picked up the plastic water bottle that she had seen earlier.

“One part water to one part vinegar, with two sprigs of thyme. That is correct, is it not?” he asked, brightly, unscrewing the cap before very gently tilting her head back. She closed her eyes automatically, and let out a little sound of surprise when she felt a bit of the cold liquid poured over her head, through her hair. The familiar smell of the herb and vinegar reached her, and she found it almost comforting; it reminded her of home. She felt as if she might begin to cry again, but the feeling passed after a moment; she was too tired to cry in earnest, now, though her eyes seemed to be perpetually watering. She made a quiet sound of assent when he ran a hand through her hair with a questioning hum. 

“Good. You know, I was rather surprised to learn how well your little grooming routine works. I have been doing it myself ever since you told me about it,” he added, after a moment, his fingers combing through her hair as he spoke. She remained silent, unsure if how to respond or if he even wanted her to do so. His fingertips found her scalp once again, rubbing gently for a few moments before he squeezed the excess liquid from her hair and pulled away slightly. She opened her eyes when she heard water running again, surprised to find that this particular bathtub was one that had a handheld showerhead next to the tap, but not terribly surprised that she hadn’t noticed it until know; after all, she’d had other things on her mind.

She closed her eyes again when he began rinsing the remaining vinegar from her hair, the water almost uncomfortably warm. She was grateful for the heat, though; the tension in her chest eased as she warmed up again, and she the urge to shiver vanished. She felt herself flush, embarrassed, when he directed the spray of water slowly over the rest of her, rinsing away any residue from the soap. She did feel cleaner—or at least, less soapy—but the not-unpleasant sensation of water playing over her skin was entirely unwelcome. She hissed softly, squirming, as he aimed the water between her legs, her thighs twitching together briefly before he used his free hand to force them apart again. He seemed to linger over that area for a long moment, before he finally turned the water off once more. 

She opened her eyes again, watching as he replaced the showerhead in its holder, before she finally looked down at herself. Her skin was clean and pink from the hot water, but she felt somehow dirtier now than when they had stared. She averted her gaze once again as he turned back towards her, stooping to scoop her up in his arms to place her on the edge of the tub opposite the one she had sat on previously. He climbed out of the now-empty tub as well, and she couldn’t avoid seeing that he was fully hard now; she shuddered, looking away quickly, only to have him laugh and ruffle her hair gently. 

“I am going to go get us a couple of towels; you just rest here a moment,” he murmured, bending down to kiss her forehead before he walked out of sight. She closed her eyes, letting her head droop forward and her mind go blank until he returned; actively worrying about what he might do upon his return, it seemed, took more energy than she could muster. When he did return, she felt herself wrapped securely in what was probably the largest fluffy white towel she had ever seen; she opened her eyes and blinked wearily up at him, finding—to her surprise—that he had secured a towel around his own waist. 

He gathered her into his arms once again, the towel still wrapped around her, and crossed the room to stand in front of the sink there. There was a chair set in front of the counter there, into which he gently deposited her. After briskly rubbing the towel across her body as best he could with her sitting on part of the fabric, he flipped the ends of it over the arms of the chair, leaving her naked body exposed once again. She gave a brief, quiet groan of dismay, and saw him smile at her in the mirror for a moment before she looked away as he picked up a comb from the counter before repositioning himself behind her, carefully combing through the wet tangle of her hair before he settled her glasses on her nose again. She didn’t remember him picking them up from the edge of the tub, and she blinked, dazed, as she tried to clear her vision.

“You know,” he began, his tone conversational as he began running the comb through her hair again. “I have been thinking about tomorrow. Perhaps I was…overeager, in my earlier plans.” She froze, hardly daring to hope. “I was so keen on seeing how you would respond to such intense pain that I didn’t think it through; with all the other, littler thing that I want to do to you tomorrow, I imagine you would be already overwhelmed before the true surgery had even started. Beyond that, I am somewhat worried that the little wounds would offer too great a chance of infection if you underwent that procedure in the same day.” He paused, dramatically, and she felt her heart skip a beat. “Perhaps I should start small, and slowly work my way up to that, hmm?”

“Please,” she breathed, unthinking, and he smiled broadly at her in the mirror once again. One of his hands slid underneath her chin, curling around her throat, while the other turned the comb over so that he could tap her cheek with the smooth plastic edge, making her twitch.

“Of course, this means that I will have to find other ways to…give you things to write about, you know,” he said, his smile turning cruel as he spoke. “Tonight, I believe that means I am going to take you, in more than one way. I had thought to wait until your legs healed from the surgery, but since the procedure itself won’t take place for quite a while, I would say it is reasonable to…change my schedule a bit.” Her heart seemed to drop into the pit of her stomach, and she flinched when he abruptly tapped the comb between her legs, just light enough not to hurt but certainly hard enough to startle her. She opened her mouth to beg, then slowly closed it again once she realized that her choice seemed to be between being raped or being crippled.

“Perhaps I’ll do something to your hair, too,” he mused, his hands moving again to smooth her hair down around her face. She looked at herself instead of at him for the first time since he had set her down, and she blinked in surprise at her image. Her hair seemed nearly black from the water instead of the red-tinged golden brown it usually was, hanging down over her shoulders to curl around her collarbones. Her upper arms were marked with dark bruises from the rough handling of the men who had pulled her from her bed, darkened on one side from the insistent squeeze of the blood pressure cuff. 

It was her face that caught her eye, though; she felt the familiar disconnection from herself as she met her own gaze in the mirror, and for a moment, it seemed almost as if another girl stared back at her, one with dark circles underneath red-rimmed eyes magnified by thick-lensed glasses and a mouth that was red and swollen and nearly bruised from repeated biting of her lips. The girl in the mirror looked too young, too little to be her, and she blinked rapidly in an attempt to resolve the feeling. His words finally registered with her, then, and she watched the eyes of her reflection go wide.

“Wh…what?” she stammered, starting to say something else only to be shushed as he placed one finger over her lips for a moment with a mildly disapproving stare. She fell silent, her wide eyes now fixed firmly on him again.

“I was thinking about this as I washed you. Perhaps I ought to cut you hair sooner rather than later, to keep it off the nape of your neck and out of the wounds that will be there tomorrow,” he remarked, lightly, running one hand slowly up the back of her neck, his fingers sliding through her hair and up to the curve of her skull—the occipital bone, her mind supplied helpfully. “Of course, I probably wouldn’t do a terribly good job; for all that I have steady hands and a good eye for detail, I’m far more practiced at cutting flesh and bone than hair.” She winced at the thought, watching as her reflected expression twisted briefly into one of disgust before fading back into dazed misery once again. “Perhaps tomorrow morning I will make a phone call to the woman who usually does my hair; she is used to making house calls, as I am not overly fond of leaving the house on frivolous errands.”

Her heart leapt in sudden excitement; perhaps she would be able to convince this woman to tell someone where she was and what Dr. Krieken had done. It was a long shot, and had she been just slightly less weary, or more lucid, she would never have considered it. Still, it gave her hope, and she straightened slightly in her chair. She wished that she hadn’t a moment later, as the action caused his fingertips to slide against her scalp once again and seemed to remind him of the placement of his hand. He began stroking her hair, every so often allowing his fingers to trail down the back of her neck. She looked up at his reflection in the mirror, watching his expression turn contemplative as he studied her; when he smiled at her, however, the expression once again warm and enthusiastic, she felt her stomach twist uncomfortably.

“It is…a very pleasant feeling, you know,” he said, his voice brimming with raw emotion and ever so slightly unsteady. She felt ill, and bit her sore lower lip without thinking as he continued. “Having this much power over someone that I so admire…knowing that I will be the inspiration for what will be the greatest story you have ever written.” She pressed her teeth harder into her lip at the thought; she had almost forgotten that she would have to write all of this down. “I can honestly say I have never felt like this before, Rhiannon.” He bent down abruptly, and she saw her own eyes widen for just an instant before he tilted her head back almost painfully far, kissing her very gently on forehead before he drew away, letting her straighten up and bring her head back to its previous position. 

“No one else has such an effect on me.” His fingertips trailed across her cheek for a moment before he settled his hand on her shoulder, his other hand running the comb through her hair once more before he set it aside. He squeezed her shoulder gently, smiling down at her for a moment before he turned and walked out of her sight. She let her gaze briefly return to her own reflection, but the feeling of being disconnected from it grew so intense that she had to avert her gaze; it happened with reasonable regularity, but it was rarely this bad. Her psychiatrist had called it depersonalization, or a form of it, and assured her that as she got better it would go away.

She assumed that the stress and the drugs made it worse, making it seem like the image reflected back at her truly wasn’t her own instead of just looking slightly ‘off’ as it usually did. She didn’t have much time to ponder this, however, as Dr. Krieken returned to her view holding a much smaller towel. She allowed him to drape it over her head, though she winced and stiffened slightly as he rubbed it vigorously over her hair before wrapping it tightly around her head. 

“I will leave that there to keep your hair out of your face while I brush your teeth,” he announced, and even without looking directly at it in the mirror, she could tell that her face flushed crimson. He chuckled, the sound mildly mocking, and he patted her shoulder briefly before coming around to stand in front of her, facing the counter. She heard him moving things about, opening a drawer at one point, followed by the very brief sound of running water. When he turned back to her, he had a toothbrush in hand with toothpaste already on it; she looked up at him miserably, wishing that he would let her do it on her own and tempted to try refusing to open her mouth. The idea was quickly rejected when he knelt down in front of her, putting them at close to the same height, and reached up to grip her jaw with his free hand. 

“Open your mouth, my dear,” he instructed, and after a brief moment of hesitation, she opened her mouth. “Wider, please.” She looked at him unhappily for a moment, and he tugged down gently on her lower jaw, forcing her mouth to open farther. “There, that’s a good girl,” he murmured, and she looked away from him as best she could as he slide the brush into her mouth. The taste of the toothpaste surprised her; there was a faint hint of mint, but the strongest flavor was of jasmine, much like the tea that she was used to drinking in the morning. Her surprise must have shown on her face, as he laughed again as he worked at cleaning her teeth.

“I thought you might like it. It works quite well, and the scent and taste of it seems like it would suit you,” he said, as he used his thumb to press her lower lip down so that he could brush her bottom front teeth. “I always imagined that you would taste…floral, somehow.” She closed her eyes to avoid seeing him even in her peripheral vision, and he allowed her to do so; she knew that the flush in her cheeks hadn’t subsided at all, and felt her ears begin to burn as well as he slipped one thumb into her mouth to hold her cheek away from her teeth as he shifted his attention to her molars.

“You really do have a small mouth,” he remarked, after a moment. She opened her eyes automatically, blinking up at him. “Only twenty four teeth; you had eight of them pulled, yes?” She made a garbled sound of assent, more of a grunt than anything else. “It’s not a bad thing, my dear; I think your mouth is lovely.” His tone was meant to be reassuring, but she still felt a faint sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as his thumb stroked her upper lip for a moment before pushing it carefully out of the way so that he could brush her upper front teeth. She was grateful when he finally stepped away, setting the toothbrush on the counter before picking something else up. She saw that it was an empty cup when he turned back to her and held it to her lips.

“Spit, please,” he instructed, and she spat the foam from the toothpaste into the cup. She considered missing on purpose, deliberately spitting on his hand, but she resisted the urge; he patted her cheek fondly before he turned and rinsed the cup out in the sink before filling it with water and offering it to her once again. “Take a drink; you need the water, and you still need to use mouthwash; you won’t be able to drink for thirty minutes after that,” he said, and she opened her mouth reluctantly. He tilted the glass slightly, and she realized abruptly how thirsty she was; she drank greedily, catching the rim of the glass between her teeth to hold it steady as she drank. He pulled it gently away from her before she was truly satisfied, and she winced slightly as a bit of the cold liquid sloshed down her front.

“I believe that was your fault, my dear,” he said, somewhat reproachfully, as he set the glass aside and used the ends of the towel she was sitting on to wipe the water off her chest and belly. He turned back to the sink after a moment, turning the water off and picking up a dark blue cylindrical bottle. It didn’t look much like any mouthwash she had ever seen, and she blinked doubtfully at it as he unscrewed the cap and lifted it to her lips. 

“Just a bit; and be careful not to swallow any of it. It wouldn’t do you any real harm, but it might make you ill,” he cautioned, and she was tempted to snap that she knew how to use mouthwash; the instant she opened her mouth, however, he poured some of it in and effective prevented her from talking. She frowned as her swished it around in her mouth, trying not to look at him but keenly aware of the way that he was watching her. He recapped the mouthwash quickly, setting it aside once again before his focus returned to her.

A long moment of silence followed, and she tried to focus on the strangely sweet, floral taste of the mouthwash instead of on the way he was staring at her. This was made more difficult by the fact that he unwound the towel from around her head and draped it over the back of the chair, beginning to play with her hair once more. She tried to ignore the feeling of his fingers twining through it, though she still shuddered when his thumb slipped gently around the curve of her ear. She was grateful when he drew away, emptying the cup from earlier of its water and holding it in front of her again. She spat out the mouthwash without hesitation, and he ruffled her hair fondly before turning away and rinsing the cup out once again.

“There, now you’re all clean again. I am sure you feel much better, too,” he said, brightly, opening the drawer and moving stuff about in it once again. She saw him plug something in, though his body hid what it was until he turned around with a hairdryer in hand. “Now all that’s left to do is get your hair dry, and then I can take you to bed,” he added, smiling as he flicked the switch to turn it on, reaching behind himself to the counter to pick up the comb again. She closed her eyes, crossing her arms over her belly, and tried not to squirm as he went to work.

He set the blow-dryer on cool, it seemed, evidently worried about accidentally burning her ear or something equally ridiculous. He wasn’t particularly skilled with it, however, and came close to whacking her with the unwieldy device more than once; she was grateful that she had her eyes closed, as having them open would have both worried and frustrated her. When he finally finished and switched the hairdryer off once more, she opened her eyes hesitantly once again. He moved around behind her once again, running his fingers through her hair. Now that it was dry, it had regained its usual color; it was still dark, but the hints of red and gold showed through more clearly. He smoothed it down with the palms of his hands, over her shoulders and down to where it hung just slightly past her collarbones. She froze as his fingers slid across her chest and down to the tops of her breasts, only relaxing when he pulled his hands away from her skin to twine his fingers through her hair.

“Your hair is beautifully soft, you know. Clearly that trick with the vinegar works,” he said, smiling at her in the mirror before bending to kiss her cheek again. She turned her face away, and he laughed softly before repositioning his hands on her so that he could slide one around her upper body, under her arms, and the other beneath her knees. He lifted her easily, cradling her gently against his bare chest, and she cringed at the feeling of his skin moving against hers as he carried her back into the other room. 

He paused next to the bed, and she gasped, startled, as he shifted her in his grasp until her back was pressed firmly to his chest, her knees pressed against her own and his arm under her knees the only thing holding her up as he flicked one side of the quilt back before gently depositing her in the bed. She shuddered at the realization that he had just managed to hold her up with only one arm; the concept of the ‘strength of the insane’ flitted through her mind, and she bit her lip uncomfortably as he delicately arranged her in the bed, straightening her legs out and placing her arms at her sides, shifting the pillow just a little farther down to better support her neck before smoothing her hair out across it.

She finally understood the purpose of the oddly shaped bed with two separate mattresses when he took hold of her left wrist; she felt something wrapped around it, and realized with growing alarm that it was another restraint, this one connected to a strap that ran beneath the small mattress that she was currently laying atop. Based on the position of the restraints, they would allow her to be held in place with her arms at her sides while giving him plenty of room in which to sleep comfortably beside her. The thought made her stomach churn, and she tried weakly to pull her arm from his grasp for a moment. He didn’t seem to notice, largely ignoring her struggles as he carefully fastened the soft, padded cuff around her wrist before reaching for her right hand. He paused, then sighed heavily and reached for the nightstand on that side of the bed.

“I had almost forgotten your injury; I am very sorry about that,” he said, almost apologetic as his hands returned to her view, this time holding and adhesive bandage instead of a square of gauze. He very gently applied it to her wrist, smoothing it down over the afflicted area before he reached over her to grab the second cuff. Despite her desperate squirming, he fastened it about her wrist with no trouble at all. She went limp against the bed in defeat when he finished, closing her eyes as he moved down to grip her left ankle. 

He pulled it slightly closer to the edge of the bed before he locked the cuff around it, but she didn’t think much about it until he leaned across her and pulled her other leg to the opposite edge of the mattress, leaving her legs spread almost uncomfortably wide and everything between them exposed. Her eyes flew open, then, fixed on him once more as she fought to pull her legs together. If she hadn’t been drugged, she might have been able to put up enough of a struggle to frustrate him. As it was, he simply laughed and brought his full strength to bear against her; her leg was moved inexorably towards the edge of the mattress, and he had no trouble securing the cuff around that ankle as well.  
“You have very strong legs, Rhiannon,” he remarked, his tone amused and admiring as he ran his hand slowly up along her leg to pat her inner thigh gently. She squirmed, feeling tears prickle in her eyes even once he had pulled his hand away. She made a quiet sound of dismay when he removed her glasses; she heard the quiet click of plastic n plastic as he folded them and set them aside. “I’ll admit, I’m a bit surprised…considering the more than slightly defective right knee, I truly expected you to be weaker than you are.” He leaned down over her, stroking her face for a moment until she closed her eyes and turned her head away.

“Now, I have to go clean up in the bathroom and take care of my own oral hygiene, but I will return shortly. For now, just relax…feel free to sleep, if you can,” he said, softly, and she felt his breath against her cheek an instant before he pressed his lips briefly to the right corner of her mouth. She grimaced at the touch, then listened to the sound of his footsteps as he crossed the room before she relaxed again.

She expected to remain tense and fully aware of what was going on around her, but the same miserable exhaustion that she had been fighting since the drug he had slipped into the soup hit her system overwhelmed her; she felt herself drifting off, despite her attempts to stay awake, and finally felt herself pulled into sleep. She was out just long enough to have a dream, one in which the entire world was dark except for two glowing eyes like pale blue flames fixed one her, their gaze pinning her in place as something monstrous approached from behind her.

She woke with a start when she felt the mattress dip beside her as someone climbed up to straddle her hips, and her heart—already beating fast—sped up considerably at the sight of the still-naked doctor atop her. She blinked rapidly, swallowing hard and struggling automatically against the bonds that held her. He leaned forward over her, one of his arms working its way underneath her just under her arms, and the other hand moving to gently cup the back of her head. It seemed that his knees and elbows took most of his weight, but he was still heavy where he lay on top of her, pinning her down.

“I have wanted to do this since the first moment I saw your picture, Rhiannon,” he murmured, his breath hot against her lips for a moment before he kissed her hard, her already bruised lips aching under the assault. She froze, her eyes wide and her mouth closed tightly; his eyes were open as well, fixed on hers as he ran his tongue across her lips. He pulled away for a moment, his breathing just slightly unsteady, his gaze never leaving hers. “Open your mouth, schatje.” She kept her lips tightly pressed together, making a low sound of negation and shaking her head as best she could. He stared down at her, his expression unreadable. “Open your mouth, or I will force you to do so and then gag you for the rest of the day.” She hesitated for just a second, then very reluctantly opened her mouth.

He kissed her again, harder this time, his tongue sliding eagerly past her lips to run over her teeth and then pressing farther in to slide across the roof of her mouth. She shuddered and nearly bit him, only to force her jaws wider apart at the last second. She felt him smile against her lips, the hand that cradled her head pulling lightly at her hair until she let her head be tilted backwards. 

He broke the kiss, then, shifting his attention to her jaw line, nipping at the soft area just beneath it before working his way slowly down the column of her neck, sucking and licking at the too-sensitive skin there until she was squirming and making quiet sounds of dismay. She wished that she could push him away, her arms tense and straining uselessly against her bonds for a long moment as his teeth scraped lightly across her skin. She knew that she would have bruises wherever his mouth had been on her neck, and the thought of even more evidence of his touch made her skin crawl. 

She shuddered and twisted as much as her restraints would allow when he shifted his position, one arm still beneath her and the other hand moving up to curve around her shoulder as his teeth found her collarbone. He never bit hard enough to hurt, she noted miserably, only hard enough to send little shivers of unwanted pleasure through her. He suckled at the spot for a few moments, then pulled away slightly to drag the flat of his tongue across the abused skin, seemingly attempting to soothe away any discomfort he might have caused. He paused for a moment, and she looked up at him, worried; she gasped when he moved suddenly farther down, his lips pressed abruptly to her right breast as he caught her nipple between his teeth, tugging gently.

“Please,” she blurted out, frightened and not thinking about what she was saying as he flicked his tongue lightly back and forth across the slowly hardening flesh, teasing her. “P…please, stop, d—don’t…don’t…” she trailed off with a little sob, frustrated at her inability to articulate her pleas properly and angry at him for the way his only answer was a low, amused chuckle with his mouth still pressed against her skin. She squirmed and struggled underneath him, her body arching slightly when his blunt teeth dragged lightly across her nipple before he pulled his mouth away.

“I am sorry, my dear,” he murmured, squeezing and rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, tugging lightly and drawing quiet, unwilling sounds of pleasure from her as he did so. “But I am afraid you are utterly irresistible.” 

With that he bent to take her other nipple into his mouth, pulling another little gasp from her as his teeth met her skin once more. She tried not to respond to his ministrations, forcing herself to lay still and holding her breath; she let it out in a rush when he bit down just slightly harder, enough to send a wave of heat through her breast when he released her nipple so that he could lick and gently suck at the now-hardening flesh.

“Are you always so quiet when you’re being touched, or is this just an act you’re putting on for me?” His tone was vaguely amused, but his voice was a little lower and more than a bit rougher than it had been, his accent thickening slightly. Her nipple hardened rapidly now that it was out of his mouth, the spit cooling rapidly in the chilled air of the room. He blew lightly on it, drawing an unsteady, sharp intake of breath from her. 

He draped one arm over her chest, more of his weight coming down on her, making it harder to breathe. She opened her eyes reluctantly, blinking down at the indistinct outline of his face and grimacing in response to the white flash of his smile as it crossed his face. She didn’t answer for a long moment, until he shifted slightly farther down, his hands moving to either side of her ribs and his weight leaving her belly to rest mostly on the bed between her legs or to be supported by his elbows against the mattress; he pressed a light kiss to the soft area just below her breastbone, and her breath hitched and caught in her throat before she spoke.

“ ‘m always quiet,” she muttered, reluctantly, looking away from him and trying to ignore the feeling of his warm mouth moving against her belly as he kissed the slight hollow bracketed by her ribs, his teeth grazing the skin every so often, very deliberately, making the muscles of her stomach twitch and jump under the skin. “Wh…when I touch m’self. Never m-make much sound. Least, n…nothin’ loud.” It was the truth; it was hard for her to make loud sounds normally, and in private situations she found that her voice tended to fade rather than grow in volume. 

She flinched when he laughed, his breath coming in hot puffs against her skin and his fingertips brushing lightly across her ribs and then all the ways down to her hips as he slid down even farther. It occurred to her, then, what he was intending to do; realization finally penetrated the drugged haze that enshrouded her mind, and her eyes widened in horror as she began to struggle in earnest once more, straining against her bonds and fighting to close her legs. It was useless, and she knew it, but she couldn’t resist the urge to try. He went still for a moment, letting her struggle; she wore herself out quickly, sagging miserably back against the bed and blinking tears out of her eyes as she squinted down at him. She couldn’t see him at all from this distance, but something told her that the doctor was grinning up at her with the same warm, incongruous smile he had flashed at her before. 

“I do not know why you bother fighting me, my dear. You know that you cannot get free, and even if you could, what exactly would you do, hmm?” She stiffened slightly, opening her mouth with the intention of responding only to have him talk over her. “Do you intend to overpower me while heavily sedated, and then flee into the snow and the storm, stark naked and barely able to walk?” His tone was mild, but his words chilled her to the core. “If you would like, I could unstrap you from the bed and simply hold you down instead; perhaps you can put this brilliant plan of yours into action?” His tone turned scathing, and she felt her cheeks flush as a few errant tears escaped her eyes to trickle down her temples and into her hair.

“It will be better if you simply relax; given the amount of pain you will be in tomorrow, I would think you’d want to enjoy whatever pleasure you can get now,” he added, after a moment, his voice softening slightly. She let her eyes flutter closed when he pressed a light kiss to the area a hand’s width below the slight swell of her belly, on the small scar from a surgery that had taken place years ago. She tensed slightly for a moment as he shifted again, making a quiet sound of dismay at the feeling of his hot breath against her sex. His thumbs spread her open a second later, leaving her feeling even more exposed than she had been; a whimper escaped her as she clenched her hands into fists, feeling his breathing speed up for a moment before she felt him shift suddenly forward.

She gasped and arched up unwillingly when his tongue made contact with her, sweeping upward from her opening to drag across her clitoris. The wet, slick sensation of it was close to being revolting, and she made a muted sound of horror as he pressed his mouth firmly against her, his tongue sliding into her as he moved one hand up to settle across her pubic bone, pushing her down against the mattress as he licked into her. The feeling of it was utterly foreign, and she felt distinctly ill as the wriggling appendage pushed into her; she clenched tightly, trying to force him to withdraw. To her great surprise, he did pull back, the hand above her sex rubbing gentle circles there for a moment before pressing down again, his arm settling across her hip and upper thigh.

“You taste sweet,” he remarked, his tone altogether too joyful and his sentence punctuated with a long, slow lick across her clit, the pressure and friction just enough to make her tense and squirm. For once, she almost wished that he would keep talking; if he was speaking to her, at least his mouth was occupied. She thought about trying to say something in return, trying to get his attention, but this idea was discarded quickly when she opened her mouth and found herself unable to speak. Her jaws shut with a click, and she grit her teeth and turned her head to one side.

A shudder worked its way down her spine when he licked her again, his tongue tracing the edges of her sex this time; her thighs twitched inward and her toes flexed, and he laughed quietly against her. He muttered something that she didn’t understand—probably in Dutch—and then quite abruptly sealed his mouth around her clitoris, sucking gently.

She made a low, involuntary sound of pleasure at the feeling, tensing and trying to resist her body’s natural inclination to push up towards the source of its pleasure as he lightly flicked his tongue across the sensitive flesh. He shifted his weight slightly, pushing her hips down a little harder; she realized why a moment later when his teeth very lightly scraped across her skin, making her gasp and squirm. 

He continued his ministrations for a painfully long period of time, until she was nearly crying in mingled frustration and disgust—at which point he simple pulled away. She let out a harsh, shuddering breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding, finally opening her eyes to squint down at him. She found him in the act of repositioning himself, sliding up to lean down over her with one forearm settling on the bed beside her chest as he lifted his other hand to her lips.

“I had to get you somewhat relaxed before I could attempt this; I imagine that it will still be a…tight fit, but it should be somewhat more comfortable for you,” he said, grinning down at her as he lightly stroked her lower lip with his index finger. “Open your mouth, please.” She did so reluctantly, and made a sound of distress when he slid three fingers into her mouth. “Suck,” he commanded, and she hesitated for a moment before doing as she was told, running her tongue around and between his fingers. She felt a little tremor pass through him, and her eyes widened when he moaned softly and let his own eyes flutter closed. She watched him for a long moment, as his face twisted up into an expression that looked almost pained, his lower lip caught between his teeth; she shut her eyes when he withdrew his fingers from her mouth.

“This shouldn’t hurt. If it does, please let me know,” he said, after a moment, and she tensed slightly as she felt one damp finger circle the opening of her sex before sliding in. She forced herself not to clench too tightly, though as he began to work his finger in and out of her, a few sharp spasms were unavoidable. She held her breath as he began to press a second finger into her, letting it out in a shaky rush as he managed to wriggle that finger into place beside the first. She felt almost painfully stretched open, and she gripped the sheet beneath her in her fists; her hands wouldn’t close as hard as she wanted, and she felt small tremors running up her arms as she tried. 

Instead of focusing on what was happening between her legs, she forced her mind on to other things, trying to recall the newest piece of poetry that she had memorized, mouthing the words silently; she was nearly able to shut out the feeling of his fingers inside of her until he began to press the third one in. The pain of it was sudden and bright, and her body went rigid.

“Hurts,” she gasped, her eyes flying open; his hand stilled instantly, and she found him frowning down at her. “Th…think I’m bleeding,” she breathed, after a moment, still wide-eyed, her breathing shallow and rapid. He bent down carefully, still not moving the hand he had partially inside of her. He let out a long, slow breath as he straightened back up, looking at her in wonder.

“Not quite, thankfully, though you do seem to be a bit…overstressed. I can help with that, however,” he said, and she saw the white flash of his smile once again as he moved to lower his mouth to her sex again. She shut her eyes against the sight, making a high sound in the back of her throat as his lips pressed lightly against her clitoris for a moment before he seemed to move down, his third fingertip withdrawing from her as his tongue pressed into her alongside the first two fingers. It hurt for a moment, but the feeling quickly faded into something far too close to pleasure for her comfort. She thought of her poetry again, trying not to focus on the wriggling wetness of his tongue and the careful flexing of his fingers.

When his tongue finally withdrew, his third finger finally pressed into her; she sucked in a quick breath of air, her thoughts scattering and all of her focus locked on the sudden, almost unbearable sensation fullness. Her legs locked out straight, her toes pulling back, her hands flexing and her fingers splaying out on the bed as she let go of the sheet. She turned her head to one side, her expression twisting into a grimace that she knew was ugly, her teeth bared as her entire body tensed for a moment.

His free hand settled low on her belly, pressing downward for a moment before rubbing in gentle circles as if trying to get her to loosen up again. She finally did manage to relax, slowly, going still against the bed once again thought she was still breathing quickly. She felt light headed—even more so than she had already been feeling—and she wondered bleakly if she was hyperventilating. His fingers began to move, twisting and stretching apart, his knuckles dragging across the inner walls of her sex, her opening aching where it was stretched around the invading digits. She let out an explosive sigh of relief when he finally withdrew his hand from her, only to gasp in alarm when she felt him lean forward over her, the head of his cock pressing against her entrance.

“Just…just relax,” he murmured, sounding nearly breathless himself. She opened her eyes again in terror when he began to press forward. “It will be all right, just give me a moment,” he added, the pressure against her increasing slightly as she tried to force herself not to tense up, knowing that she would only make it more painful if she did.

“ ‘S not gonna fit,” she slurred, her words coming out unclear and thick. “T…too big, please, it won’t….won’t…” Her voice cracked and faded into nothing as he reached down with one hand, his weight temporarily supported by the other as he spread her open and rolled his hips forward. She let out a high, terrified sound of pain as he finally slid into her, and he made a low sound of surprise in response, going still on top of her and bringing his other hand up quite suddenly to help take his weight. She realized after a moment that he was shaking; she could feel each tremor that ran through him, and she swallowed down a little sob as he bent low over her, his mouth close to her ear and his chest against hers as he began to thrust.

His movements were not graceful, his hips jerking forward into her at irregular intervals, his breathing rapid and uneven against her ear, interspersed with surprisingly high, desperate moans. She held her breath and made no sound at all, silently mouthing the words to prayers and poems and language lessons—anything to keep from focusing on the act currently taking place. She could keep her mind on what she was doing, however, the feeling of him inside of her pulling her firmly back into her body each time she tried to force her mind on to other things. 

She opened her eyes after a moment and immediately wished that she hadn’t; he had shifted slightly, his face now hovering over hers, his eyes wide and fixed on hers. He looked almost pained again, his breath hissing through his teeth for a moment before he shut his eyes and his face went slack as a particularly violent shudder went through him, a broken cry pulling itself from him; she realized only when he went still and slumped forward on top of her that he must have finished. Her stomach dropped out as she realized that he had done so inside of her, and terror made her heart skip a few painful beats at the thought of getting pregnant with his child. He muttered something that she didn’t catch, remaining where he was for a long moment, until she began to struggle, unable to breathe with his weight pinning her down.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” he offered, after a moment, finally pulling himself out and off of her, standing up and stumbling like a drunk, abruptly graceless. “I wasn’t expecting…It’s been fifteen years since I…” He coughed, and she blinked tears from her eyes as she stared up at him, unable to see his expression. “It’s just that I never do that with my patients. I find the idea distasteful.” She realized after a moment that he was apologizing for finishing too quickly, and she found herself having to fight down another round of hysterical laughter. She nearly choked, then felt her expression crumple as she began to cry, closing her eyes tightly. She heard the faint sounds of his retreating footsteps, but nothing after that.

She cried for a few minutes, silent, shaking sobs that faded quickly, her eyes burning and her head aching. She opened her eyes, finally, wanting to continue crying but feeling unable to do so, staring dizzily at the blurry outline of the nightstand beside the bed, painfully aware of a dampness between her thighs. She squirmed slightly, then let out a quiet sigh and closed her eyes again. She felt sleep threatening at the edges of her mind—and was jerked suddenly back to consciousness by the feeling of a warm hand against her belly. She reluctantly opened her eyes, the world swimming back into view. Krieken—dressed in a pair of clean shorts once again—loomed over her, what looked like a washcloth in the hand that wasn’t resting on her stomach. She pointedly looked away when he slipped the cloth between her legs, gently wiping her clean.

“I do apologize for my reaction,” he said, slowly, his voice steady and calm once again. “To be perfectly honest, I was rather surprised by the effect you had on me. Next time, I will…take certain precautions.” He was quiet for a moment, working at cleaning her up in silence for a moment before he spoke again. “I will say that you have no need to be concerned about pregnancy. Beyond the fact that it is quite unlikely that you could conceive, considering the numerous problems with your own reproductive system, I am quite certain that I am sterile,” he said, and she caught the faint undertone of bitterness in his voice. She was relived, though it stung to hear her concerns about her own fertility confirmed in so abrupt and casual a way.

She heard him move away; though she still refused to look at him, she could follow his progress around the edge of the bed to the opposite side. He slid carefully under the blanket there before draping it carefully over her as well. She closed her eyes tightly when he pressed up against her, one arm draped over her belly and his body curled up tightly to allow him to rest his head on her chest.

“Since you were kind enough to answer my questions while we were in the bathtub without asking any of your own, I will volunteer something else about myself now,” he said, quietly. “I am a unique sort of insomniac: I cannot sleep unless there is someone in bed with me that I can hold. As you might expect, I don’t do this with any of my other patients; before today, it was always someone in my employ, a guard or—very rarely—a prostitute. I don’t trust many people to be close to me while I sleep.” She thought of him wrapping himself around the man she had seen him talk to before like this, thinking that she should find it amusing but in reality only feeling sick and cold, though the heat of his body was gradually warming her once again. She didn’t respond, and he sighed after a moment. 

“I’ll let you sleep for now. When you wake up again, I will take you down the hall to the room I have set up for you to write in. Hopefully you will get something finished before it is time to eat supper; you can write a little more after that. I promise I won’t drug you this time,” he added, with a weary sounding chuckle. She cringed at the thought of trying to write, but she wasn’t able to dwell on it; it was too hard to focus on anything, with her fraying nerves and exhausted body. 

He remained silent for a long moment, before she heard him speak once again, very softly. She didn’t understand the words, but there was a depth and sincerity to his tone that frightened her, and she felt suddenly cold in a way that had nothing to do with the sweat still slowly drying on her skin. She listened to him for a long time after that, until his breathing slowed and evened out, his breath warm against her breast; her exhaustion finally got the better of her, and she faded into a deep and almost dreamless sleep.

She woke partially, once, when she felt his lips brush her ear before the warmth of his body seemed to vanish from the bed. She tried to force her eyes open to see if he would walk into her view, but she was asleep again before she was able to do so. This time, she did dream: a nightmare that would not have been a nightmare to anyone but her. In her dream she was sitting on her bathroom floor after a shower when she looked up and saw the sink very slowly turn itself on, and she covered her eyes with both hands, opened her mouth, and screamed.

She woke suddenly, adrenalin shooting through her as she panted for breath. She was disoriented for a moment, her mouth dry and her body aching. Her mind was clear again, though, and as she blinked blearily and tried to sit up, the nightmarish events of the past day rapidly eclipsed the memory of the dream. She fell still, breathing rapidly, her eyes wide as she looked around what little of the room she was able to see. She had just begun to relax again when she heard something across the room begin to shift. For one terrible, irrational moment, she was certain it would be the demon that she had hidden her eyes from in her dream. When the shape finally resolved into the shape of Nathaniel Krieken standing beside the bed, she thought bitterly that she would have preferred the monster.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, his tone bright and earnest. He was dressed again, his clothes as clean and impeccable as they had been earlier in the day. She didn’t answer, and after a long moment of silence he sighed and pulled the blanket back, his hands moving over her lightly for a moment before he stooped and checked quickly between her legs as she stared off to the side, refusing to look at him. 

“It would seem that you have survived unscathed,” he said, smiling down at her as he turned her head to face him once again. He held her there for a moment, then moved to work on unfastening the restraints at her wrists and then at her ankles. She sat up quickly as soon as she was able, turning to face him, her legs pressed tightly together and her arms crossing over her breasts; she felt anger swell suddenly in her, her hands clenching hard “I am relieved, to tell you the truth; I thought I might have done you real harm.” She wished that she could have screamed at him that he had truly hurt her, perhaps irreparably, and in a sudden moment of thoughtless hatred, she shot to her feet and hit him.

She was stunned and horrified, the hatred leaving the instant her fist slammed into his floating ribs, leaving her off-balance and terrified as she reeled back from him. He staggered, letting out a surprised huff of air, his eyes going wide and his face twisting briefly in pain. He pressed one hand hard to the place she had struck, and then his eyes began to narrow. Panic shot through her like lightning, and she scrabbled backwards across the bed, landing with a thump on the floor on the other side before scrambling to her feet and running for the door. Her legs were stiff and slower than they should have been, but it seemed that she was still faster than he was. She darted out of the room, berating herself for running as soon as her feet hit the floor of the hall; she wished she hadn’t hit him, or at least had remained there to apologize rather than running away.

She hesitated for just a second, then bolted off down the hall. She wasn’t a fast runner, and she couldn’t ordinarily keep it up for long, and certainly not so soon after waking. She heard the door to the room open fly open again, Krieken’s voice echoing down the corridor after her.

“Stomme trut!” It was in Dutch, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what it meant. She stepped through the first open door she came to, slamming it behind her and fumbling at the handle until she caught hold of the lock, twisting it into place before scrabbling at the wall beside it until she found the light switch and flicked it on. She blinked, realizing belatedly that she couldn’t see anything clearly without her glasses. 

She squinted at the room, feeling her heart sink when she realized it seemed to simply be a guest bathroom. It wasn’t terribly small, but there was certainly no place to hide; the bathtub was directly to the left of the door, ending at a half-wall that stuck out about a foot beyond the tub, blocking the view of the toilet from door. The sink was on the other side, with cupboards that rose to both sides of it and a small cabinet beneath it. 

She staggered on suddenly wobbly legs across the room, finally reaching the far wall and slumping heavily against it; she slid down it slowly to sit on the floor, and huddled in on herself. She felt suddenly sick; she had no idea why she had struck him, though she knew that it had been fear—and her admittedly flawed self-preservation instinct—that had driven her to run from him. She remained frozen on the floor, her breath coming in deep, rapid gasps until she was able to force it to slow to normal once again. Her heart continued to hammer in her chest, however, as she waited in miserable terror for any sign that he had found her. She counted the seconds as best she could, but by the time she reached five minutes she gave up, simply curling up tighter on herself. She waited for a horribly long time, her terror mounting until she was dizzy with it; when she finally heard something strike the door, it scared her half to death.

“Rhiannon.” Her name was pronounced very carefully, and she could tell that it was being spoken through gritted teeth. “What. Possessed. You.” Each word was ground out slowly, a sentence unto itself, and she felt her stomach twist up into a painful knot that left her unable to speak. “I assume that you have an excellent reason for cracking two of my ribs and then running from me?” From the way he said it, it was the fact that she had run away that outraged him, and not the fact that she had injured him. She tried to come up with a response, and her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he spoke again. “I do expect an answer, you know.”

“I was angry,” she blurted out, finally. “And…and…I wasn’t…th-thinking clearly, I’d j-just had a nightmare, and I was….I was scared.” She nearly stumbled over her words in her haste to get them out. It was terribly hard to speak up loud enough to be heard, when she would much rather have simply cowered in silence. There was a protracted moment where he didn’t say anything else, leaving her to her anxiety. 

“You were angry,” he said, very slowly. She pushed herself back into the corner between the wall and the cabinet when she heard him chuckle darkly. “Not nearly as angry as you have made me, I would imagine,” he growled, his voice abruptly deepening. “I truly hadn’t intended to hurt you today, and now I find that it is quite unavoidable; you played along so nicely up until this point, too. I am disappointed in you, Rhiannon.” He spat her name like a curse, and she found herself choking on sobs of fright. “I suppose I will offer one more choice today. Unlock this door and let me in, and I promise I won’t hurt you nearly as badly as I will if I have to break the door down.” 

She wanted to get up and open the door but found it nearly impossible to force herself to move; she suddenly understood the sort of fear that a deer felt when confronted with an oncoming car, the kind of terror that rooted a creature’s feet to the ground even when moving could have saved them.

“I will count to three,” he said, his tone still low and rough. She lurched unsteadily to her feet taking one slow step forward on trembling legs that threated to drop her to the floor again. “One.” She forced herself forward, reaching for the handle of the door. “Two.” It took a moment of fumbling with the lock, her shaking fingers unable to grasp it properly. “Thr—” She wrenched the door open before he could finish the final word, only to find him standing directly in front of the door, glaring down at her. He had his lab coat on once again, she noted as she felt her heart jump up into her throat. 

She stepped back automatically as he moved towards her, cringing away when he lifted a hand, expecting to be struck. Instead, he took hold of her by one arm and spun her around, moving her a few awkward steps across the room so that he could bend her roughly over the counter, jamming the edge of it hard into her hips and holding her there by pressing up against her from behind as he jerked her hands behind her. He held them there with one hand, and she heard him pull something from his pocket with the other. A moment later, a pair of metal handcuffs ratcheted shut around her wrists, tight enough to dig into her skin, scraping against the cut on her right wrist.

“If you were anyone else, I would cut your hands off for that,” he growled, grabbing her by the hair and stepping back to pull her upright. He twisted her around again shoving her forward towards the door. She staggered forward, but evidently not quickly enough for him. He grabbed her by the hair again, stalking out of the room and off down the hall, dragging her along with him; she staggered after him, barely able to keep up with his long strides, bent nearly double by the hand in her hair. 

“As it is, I think I will simply play with your legs a bit. I imagine that will convince you not to try this again…assuming you’ll even be physically able to once I’m done with you,” he said, darkly. Another sob escaped her, and she almost stumbled when they reached the stairs; he didn’t slow down, and she had to take the steps two at a time, leaving her feeling off-balance until they finally reached the bottom. 

She felt her dread growing as they continued down the hallway until she was finally thrown forward into a room that she recognized after a moment as the one she had occupied earlier that morning. She landed painfully on her knees this time, unable to balance herself with her arms, and just barely managed to twist around to watch him. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but she heard him lock the door. He remained facing it for a long moment, the silence of the room broken only by the sounds of her crying. She didn’t bother trying to stay quiet, though she did huddle in on herself as best she could given the fact that her arms were still bound behind her. When he finally turned around and crossed the room, his movements were slow and deliberate once again.

“As you may have noticed, I do not like it when things deviate from my plan,” he said, anger still audible in his tone but not nearly as prominent as it had been. He came to a halt in front of her, and she fixed her gaze on his shoes as he spoke again. “I will give you a chance to redeem yourself, however. I am going to ask you to do a series of things that you will doubtlessly find humiliating, painful, or frightening, and you will do them without hesitation or question. If you manage this, you’ll earn yourself something of a reprieve for yourself. Do you agree to this?” He stooped slightly to grip her chin and tilt her head back, forcing her to meet his gaze.

“Y…yes,” she managed, after a moment of struggling to get the word out. He smiled, and this time there was no warmth at all in the expression; she felt as if she had slipped through the ice on a frozen lake, and she shuddered at the thought.

“You will call me sir—or Doctor, if you prefer—until I give you permission to do otherwise. Is that clear?” He released his hold on her and she looked down immediately, once again avoiding his gaze.

“Yessir.” It came out as all one word, the Kentucky accent she had worked so hard at repressing creeping back into her voice. He laughed and she flinched, hunching forward slightly and waiting for a strike that never came.

“Good. Now that we have that established…” he trailed off, moving around behind her. She was taken off guard when he planted one heavy foot between her shoulder blades and shoved her forward; unable to catch herself, she let out a short sound of surprise followed by a groan of pain when her face struck the floor. A particularly sharp pain went through the bridge of her nose, and she felt blood begin to drip from it a moment later; she assumed that it was broken, though it had never taken much to give her a bloody nose. His foot remained in the center of her back, the tread and heel of the boot he wore digging painfully into her skin. “I believe that I am owed an apology.”

“I’m sorry, d…doctor,” she forced out, her voice muffled and distorted by the fact that she couldn’t lift her face from the floor. “I didn’t…I wasn’t thinking, I just…p-panicked, and…” she trailed off, swallowing hard. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I really am s—sorry.” Her stammer was all the more obvious now that she was trying to speak quickly, to avoid angering him any further with what he would doubtlessly perceive as hesitation. As it was, he very slowly leaned more of his weight onto the foot still resting on her back, grinding his heel down into the skin until he pulled another low whimper of pain from her. He pulled his foot away, then, moving to stand in front of her; she didn’t dare attempt to move until he bent and grabbed her by the hair, lifting her head off the floor just high enough that he could plant his boot in the small but still growing puddle of blood that dripped from her nose.

“Hm. You’ve made quite a mess of things, haven’t you? Physically as well as metaphorically,” he remarked, lightly. “At least try to clean up after yourself,” he instructed, letting go of her hair suddenly; her face nearly struck the floor again, but she managed to prevent herself from over-balancing this time. “Begin with the floor.” She almost hesitated, uncertain and disgusted, but fear prevented her from doing so.

She closed her eyes the first time she licked the tile where her blood was pooled, grimacing at the underlying taste of soap. She opened her eyes again reluctantly after a moment, so that she could see what she was doing; as much as she didn’t want to, she found it necessary. For all her efforts, the floor didn’t seem to get any cleaner; all she really did was smear the blood around as more dripped from her possibly-broken nose to the tile as she attempted to lick it away. She wondered if he would stop her eventually, even risking a brief glance up at him; he stared impassively down at her, unmoving, his arms crossed over his chest. She quickly lowered her gaze again, trying to focus on what she was doing without thinking too hard about what other substances might have come in contact with Nathaniel Krieken’s floor. Her nose did finally stop bleeding on its own—which she took to be a good sign—and she was able to make a bit of headway.

“Ah, it seems you can follow directions. I admit, I was doubtful,” he stated, his tone still mild and seemingly uninterested. “I believe the floor is as clean as you can get it,” he added, after a moment, sliding his foot forward slightly in a silent demand. She lowered her mouth tentatively to his boot, hesitating for only half a second before she pressed her lips to the blood-smeared leather. She wished that she had her hands free to steady herself as she licked it clean, grimacing at the taste of polish and dust mingled with the coppery taste of blood and feeling her face flush when he laughed.

“This isn’t the most efficient way of getting one’s boots clean, but it certainly is the most enjoyable,” he remarked; she continued what she was doing, refusing to look at him, until he abruptly grabbed her hair and pulled her back into an upright kneeling position once again. He continued to pull her backwards until she was forced to tilt her head back and then arch her back in an attempt to alleviate some of the strain he was putting on her neck; he held her in that position for a moment, his free hand moving to cup her cheek as he dragged his thumb across her lips. 

He pulled away a moment later, licking his thumb contemplatively as he looked down at her. She was dully surprised that he wasn’t more concerned with hygiene, being a doctor; she felt her stomach twist disconcertingly as he sucked his other fingers clean, the action accompanied by nearly obscene sucking sounds. She looked away again, quickly, only to be taken off-guard when he struck her. She gasped when his open palm made contact with her cheek, hard enough to snap her head to the side.

“Get up.” It was easier than she anticipated to get back to her feet, even without the use of her hands; once on her feet, however, she was thrown off balance almost immediately as he turned her around and bent her over the examination table. It was at an awkward height, and she was forced up onto the balls of her feet to properly bend over it. She heard the brief scrape of metal on metal, followed by the release of the cuffs around her wrists. “Reach across to the other side and grab the edge of the table.” She did so slowly; it got harder to breathe as she stretched out, the awkward position making it impossible to take a deep breath. During this time, he had walked around to the opposite side table, and she felt her heart skip several painful beats as he began to speak again as he fastened the medical restraint on that side of the table to her right wrist.

“Have you ever been beaten with a belt before?” he asked, his tone neutral as he closed one side of the handcuffs around her left wrist and the other just above the bottom edge of the restraint on her right. She tugged at her bonds, knowing quite well that she wouldn’t be able to pull away but unable to keep from trying.

“Y…yes, sir,” she responded after a moment, squirming as he moved around behind her once again, running one hand along the length of her spine. “Until…” she swallowed hard. “Until I h-had bruises, and the skin sp…split open in one place.” He pressed up against her, leaning over her until his weight rested heavily on her back and he could speak directly into her ear.

“And who was it that did this to you, hmm? Your father, perhaps?” He slide one hand between her legs, cupping her sex and finding her clitoris with the tip of his middle finger. She shuddered, trying to press her thighs together only to have him kick her feet apart and continue his ministrations.

“No, sir,” she whispered, feeling her face begin to burn as her eyes prickled with unshed tears. “It was…it was self-inflicted.” There was absolute silence for a moment, as if he was surprised, followed by startled laughter. 

“You have a great deal of mental fortitude, you know. Most people aren’t able to continue whipping themselves long enough to cause that kind of damage. Did you have a reason for it, or was it just…for your own enjoyment?” Without warning, he forced two fingers into her sex. She was unprepared and his fingers were dry; she felt the delicate skin around her opening tear slightly, and she made a strangled, high sound of pain as a shudder went through her.

“It was…it was just…I wanted to know how it felt,” she stammered, her hips jerking forward against the edge of the table as she tried to pull away from his hand. His fingers twisted inside of her, and she whimpered and clutched convulsively at the table. “P-please, doctor, it h-hurts, stop—” Her voice cracked and faded, her back arching and her legs beginning to shake as he dragged his fingernails against the inner walls of her sex; it didn’t feel as if he broke the skin, but the pain of it made her eyes water.

“Oh, this?” He flexed his fingers apart abruptly, then crooked them forward roughly to drag painfully across the area he had previously scratched. Her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth dropped open in a silent expression of agony, her hips jerking and lifting as she struggled uselessly to pull away from his hand. “I had no idea.” He punctuated his sentence by thrusting his fingers suddenly deeper into her, and she felt her guts cramp painfully as his fingertips jabbed against her cervix. “I wonder how painful it would be for you if I were to attempt to put my entire hand in here…considering your size, I doubt I could actually do it, but I imagine it would make for an interesting attempt.” He twisted his fingers again, and her shoulder jerked in a nearly-silent sob.

“Please, please, sir, I’m s-sorry I hit you, I’ll never…never do it again, just…just please stop, i-it hurts,” she babbled against the table, her voice slurred and distorted by her crying, still soft and higher than normal, her whole body tense and shaking as she struggled to find some way to pull away from him. His fingers stilled for a moment before he began attempting to work a third into her, drawing another desperate sob from her. She was terrified that he might actually try to force his entire hand into her, but as soon as he got his third finger inside of her, his hand stilled. His weight lifted off of her, and his free hand began rubbing gentle circles on the small of her back after a moment.

“So, if I were to tell you that it was my intention to whip your legs bloody and then cut into the soles of your feet once I finished this—” he emphasized his statement with a wriggle of his fingers inside of her that made her grit her teeth and squirm, “—would you still want me to stop?” 

“Yes,” she gasped, without thinking, too distracted by the pain to truly process what he had said. He twisted his fingers harshly, and she sobbed soundlessly, the table beneath her growing wet with tears and spit as she cried. “Yes sir, please, anything, just…just stop!” He laughed, then quickly jerked his fingers out of her; pain made her knees buckle, and she made a low, strangled sound as she tried and failed to scream. She closed her legs the instant that she was able to do so, pressing her thighs tightly together and trying to ignore the dampness she could feel between them, undoubtedly blood from his rough handling.

“Very well, then. I’m so glad you’ve decided to play along again,” he purred, and she shuddered at the sound of a belt buckle clicking against itself as it was undone, followed by the sound of leather against fabric as he pulled it free of the belt loops. He leaned over her again, resting one elbow painfully against her spine as he did so. “If you are able to scream during this, please feel free to do so. I would love to hear it.” He pulled away from her then, leaving her shivering in growing fear. 

She heard the whistling noise of something being swung through the air a fraction of a second before a line of pain flared into being across her backside. The air left her lungs in a startled, nearly silent whoosh and her hips jerked forward hard against the edge of the table in her body’s automatic, futile attempt to get away from the source of the pain. She knew he was using his belt, but with the strength he put behind his first swing, it felt more like being hit with a solid piece of wood.  
There was a five second pause before the next strike fell—across her thighs this time—just long enough for the pain of the first to begin to fade. Her hips jerked forward again, and she bit her lip, struggling in her bond. Five seconds later, the third stroke fell. Five seconds after that, the fourth. By the fifth, she couldn’t stay still and was having a hard time keeping her feet under her as she writhed helplessly, the unyielding metal of the table digging into the sensitive skin just above her hip bones.

He worked his way methodically up and down her legs; once the first set of marks had been made, it seemed that he aimed his swings so that the belt never struck a spot that hadn’t been hit before. She tried to scream more than once, each time not managing a sound much louder than a sob. She lost count of how many times the belt made contact with her skin, though she did notice when she felt the skin break when the belt landed across the already-welted skin at the backs of her knees. 

He continued until a welt that cross both upper thighs and one low on her calves had split open as well, and she was getting dizzy from the combination of pain and the difficulty she had breathing, at which point he stopped abruptly. She heard the belt’s buckle clatter against the floor, and shuddered when she felt his hands against the abused skin of her legs a moment later. She sobbed and struggled; his hands were cool against the burning welts there, but even a gentle touch was too much to bear. 

“You are remarkable,” he said, dragging his fingernails lightly over the backs of her legs, making her arch and tremble as she cried. “I really did think that you would scream, given the proper incentive.” He patted her backside fondly, and her hips jerked weakly against the table; she was only faintly aware of him moving away for a moment. She heard a sound a minute later that she didn’t immediately recognize; it registered after a moment that it had been the click of a camera shutter. The sound repeated twice more, before she heard him move away again.

When he returned, he walked around to the other side of the table and she felt the restraint that held her right wrist to the table being undone. She had to grip the edge tightly for a moment to keep from falling over, and she staggered when he moved around behind her once again and pulled her forcibly upright; if he hadn’t held her up as he turned her to face him, she imagined that she would have fallen over. As it was, she stood staring at the ground, trembling on unsteady legs, tears still dripping down her cheeks.

She groaned softly when he picked her up for a moment before setting her down on the examination table. The rough fabric of his lab coat rubbed painfully against the welts that marked the backs of her thighs, and she made another muted sound of pain as he set her down. The coolness of the metal was almost welcome, but she didn’t have much time to be relieved; he turned her carefully over onto her belly. Her hands—still trapped beneath her—dug painfully into her belly, making it hard to breathe once again. 

A sob pulled itself from her throat as his hand curled around her ankle, pulling her foot into a slightly different position before securing the restraint around it, yanking it much tighter than she judged was necessary; she couldn’t imagine struggling much at this point, miserable as she was. The restraints rubbed painfully against the marks on her legs as he fastened the second one around her left ankle. She could feel her heartbeat in the burning welts that criss-crossed her skin, and she finally turned her head to one side so that she could breathe more easily; her nose was utterly impossible to breathe through, and her throat felt dry and partially closed off from her crying. She swallowed hard, twice, as he moved towards the head of the table, sliding one hand under her so that it was pressed over her breastbone; he forced her upper body up and off the table, her back arched painfully.

“Extend your arms over your head,” he instructed, his free hand pressing down painfully at the small of her back until she managed to comply. He lowered her back down to the table, then, sliding his hand out from under her and running it lightly her arm. She kept her head turned to the side, her view of the room now blocked by her own upper arm. He did something with the chain that connected her handcuffs, and as he walked away from the table again she pulled downwards with both wrists, only to discover that the chain between them was now firmly fastened to something at the head of the table. 

She heard him putting on a pair of latex gloves, and felt her heart quicken in sudden fear; she didn’t know what he intended to do, but she reasoned that it must be something worse than what he had already done if he felt the need to wear gloves for it. She started to squirm, only to fall still as his cold hand settled against her lower back for a moment before sliding lower, over her backside and down her thigh. She shuddered and grit her teeth against the pain of his touch, only tensing further when his fingers trailed across the sensitive skin on the bottom of her foot.

“Are you holding back on my account, Rhiannon?” he questioned, an instant before she felt something sharp prick the arch of her foot. She went rigid, barely breathing for a painfully drawn-out moment. He cut her a moment later, deeply, and the air left her lungs in a sudden, hot rush. “If you are, I assure you there is no need for it. Do feel free to be as loud as you like.” The blade slid lower, lengthening the cut, and she sobbed; her back arched as she tried to pull her foot away from him, and he pulled the blade out of her foot after a moment, his fingers stroking the edges of the wound for a moment before he pressed on fingertip against it as if trying to force it into the cut. Her jaw went slack and her eyes rolled, her hands flexing and shaking uselessly where they were cuffed above her; it took a moment for her to even be able to make noise again, and when she was, it came as a quiet, prolonged moan that bordered on a whine. 

She felt sick and abruptly dizzy when he took hold of her other foot, digging the blade into it as well. She twisted against the bonds that held her, gagging at the feeling of the scalpel’s progress through her flesh. He probed the wound with his fingers again, prying it wider open with his thumbs as she sobbed and writhed in near silence, her mouth open and her eyes squeezed shut.

He laughed softly, his hands leaving her foot abruptly, and there was a long moment of silence as he crossed the room. She was left panting and shivering weakly, dizzy and sick to her stomach from the pain in her feet and legs. She didn’t notice that he had returned to the table until she felt his hands on her again; this time, one rested on her upper arm and the other cradled the back of her head.

“Extraordinary. You know, I believe that I would have screamed at some point during all of that,” he remarked, his tone excited and eager once again, the anger having left it; she opened her tear-filled eyes to look at him once again and found that he had bent down close to her, his face just barely visible over her own arm. “And now I am forced to wonder,” he continued, gently running his hands down her body as he left her sight; she shuddered when he touched her legs, biting her lower lip for a moment until she released it suddenly as his hands found her right foot again. “…if perhaps this was part of some terribly unnecessary plan of yours. Did I not give you enough to write about today?” he asked, his tone earnestly apologetic. She gasped and sobbed, nearly breathless with agony as she felt the burn of iodine in the wound on her feet. 

“If that was the case, my dear, you could simply have asked. You didn’t need to go through all the trouble of lashing out and running away. I will always be happy to provide you with material for your writing.” Darkness threatened around the edges of her vision when he ran one finger along the edges of the wound; he made a quiet, contemplative sound, then reached up to pat her thigh reassuring, the contact sending a jolt of pain through her. “You won’t need stitches, which I’m sure you’re happy about. I’ll just need to put a bit of antibacterial ointment on it before I bandage it.” She made a low sound of horror, muffled somewhat by the fact that she had bitten her lower lip again, as she heard him fiddling with something for a moment before she heard what sounded like a paper tearing.

“I just need to get the bleeding stopped, first,” he added, his tone cheerful. She shuddered and tensed again, her back arching once more as he pressed what felt like a square of gauze firmly over the wound, holding it there with the heel of his hand. “You know, you had several scars on the bottom of this foot already; they seemed to be from very neatly arranged puncture wounds, which—I must admit—intrigues me. Were they self-inflicted?” It took her a moment to remember the origin of the scars that he was talking about, and longer still to find her voice well enough to speak.

“N…no, sir,” she grit out, her voice soft and unsteady, strained and slurred from being forced out from between clenched jaws. “S-stepped on a…a plastic c-card holding ab…about twelve pairs of earrings. Wasn’t on purpose.” She ended her statement with a gasp as he increased the pressure on her wounded foot, biting her lip again when he laughed.

“I can only imagine what the trip to the emergency room to have them pulled out was like,” he remarked, and she shuddered and squirmed again as his free hand settled on her calf just above the cuff that was wrapped around her ankle.

“P…pulled ‘em out myself,” she managed, unwillingly remembering the act of prying each little bit of metal out of her foot; thankfully, none of them had broken off internally. He laughed again, patting her leg once more and making her groan weakly in pained dismay. 

“You do have a high tolerance for pain,” he remarked, his tone admiring. “Most people who claim that particular trait are lying; I honestly had expected the same of you; I’m very glad to have been proved wrong, for once,” he added, finally easing the pressure off of her foot and peeling the gauze back slightly. He made a soft sound of approval, pulling the gauze away entirely. His fingers returned to her foot a moment later, dabbing some kind of thick cream onto the wound; it stung for a moment, but the pain began to fade a moment after he finished applying it. She let out a shaky sigh of relief as he pressed a fresh square of gauze over the wound before beginning to wind what felt like an elastic bandage around the appendage. By the time he finished, the burning pain of the cut had faded to a far more manageable throbbing ache.

“Your other foot has almost stopped bleeding on its own,” he said, sounding almost surprised. “Has anyone ever told you that you clot very easily? Though…I do wonder if this is simply a sign that you are still dehydrated from earlier,” he added, his tone contemplative again as he wiped the un-bandaged foot with iodine. She hissed through her teeth, her hands clenching into fists as he waited for the liquid to dry before dabbing the same cream he had put on the other foot onto the wound before pressing a square of gauze over it. “You drink far too little water,” he chided, lightly, as he began to wrap that foot as well. She felt the sudden, incongruous urge to laugh at his concern for her well-being, and wasn’t quite able to hold it back. 

He froze, seemingly startled, when she let out a high-pitched, hysterical burst of laughter, her body shaking slightly with the force of it; it seemed to vacillate between true laughter and sobbing for a moment, as she fought to get her breathing under control. This same response occurred whenever she badly injured herself, but it never seemed to become less disconcerting when it happened. She struggled with herself for a long moment, until she managed to force herself into silence once again, though a few irregular tremors ran through her even once she had stopped.

“Your reactions are fascinating,” he said, with another laugh of his own, pulling the bandage tight around her foot. She heard the sound of it tearing before he smoothed the torn end down against the top of her foot. He removed his gloves a moment later. “I have never had anyone quite like you in my possession before.” He ran his hand slowly up the back of her right leg as he moved to stand beside her again, his hand finally coming to rest on the back of her head once again. She opened her eyes—though she couldn’t remember closing them—and found him bending down over once again, frowning slightly.

“I do hope that you have learned something from this, my dear,” he said, with a slight smirk. “I will take good care of you when you behave, but I can—and will—make your life very unpleasant indeed if you choose to disobey me, or act out. As you may have noticed, I have…a little problem with my temper. Thankfully, I managed to control myself better than usual this time; next time, you may not be so lucky.” His smile widened into something bright and innocent, but she felt her stomach twist and lurch uncomfortably all the same. 

“Do keep that in mind,” he added as he moved out of sight towards the bottom of the table again; she tensed when his fingers rushed her ankle above the restraint that held it, only relaxing when all he did was unfasten the strap that held it. He freed her second foot after a moment, and she heard him pick something up and set it aside before he moved back to the head of the table, this time unlocking the cuffs that had been digging into her wrists. She winced slightly at the pins-and-needles sensation of blood rushing back into her fingers, and he rubbed her hands gently for a moment before moving back to her side, turning her over carefully before helping her sit up.

She grimaced, biting down hard on her lower lip again when her weight came down on her aching backside and upper thighs, her lower legs dangling off the edge of the table. There was a stinging pain and a deep ache inside of her as well, and she felt tears prickle in her eyes at the memory of the way his fingers had twisted inside of her. He picked her up without warning, and she made a muted sound of pain as his lab coat rubbed painfully against the welt that had split open across the backs of her knees. He made a quiet sound of effort, and she realized after a moment that he must be in pain from his cracked ribs; she wished, for a single vindictive moment, that she had hit him harder. The thoughts scattered from her mind when he spoke again, however.

“Now, then; I am going to take you back upstairs, so that you can write while all of this is still fresh in your mind; hopefully, you’ll still be able to get a fair amount done today,” he said, seemingly still cheerful. She closed her eyes, pulling her arms tightly over her chest, and remained silent. He crossed the room quickly, and she felt him shift her weight slightly so that she was supported by only one of his arms until he was able to unlock and open the door. He nudged it the rest of the way open with his foot, then wrapped his other arm securely around her once again.

They both remained silent as he walked, her mind unfocused and flitting from thought to thought; it was hard to accept that she hadn’t quite been there for a full day. It seemed like so much longer than that, though she reasoned that fear and exhaustion went a long way to changing her perception of time. She was jolted from her thoughts when he reached the stairs; the shifting pressure of his arms against her as he climbed the staircase was more painful than she had expected, and she felt her face twist into a grimace of pain for a moment as her hands curled into fists once again. It was over quickly; he seemed to have no trouble getting up the steps even with two cracked ribs and one hundred and seventy five pounds of nearly insensate author in his arms, and that realization made her blood run cold. He was unreasonably strong, and for the second time that day she found herself thinking uncomfortably over the supposed ‘strength of the insane.’

She opened her eyes hesitantly after a moment, finding them in the hallway that contained the still-open door to the bathroom she had attempted to hide in earlier. She winced at the sight, looking away quickly. He finally came to a stop outside of a different door, once again supporting her with only one arm as he opened the door and stepped carefully inside, turning the lights on. She didn’t have much time to look around before she found herself set down abruptly in a well-padded chair; she still winced as the material of it pressed into the welts on her legs, but it wasn’t quite as bad as she had assumed it would be. She was startled again when he moved around behind her, reaching down to settle the pair of glasses he had given her earlier back on the bridge of her nose. She blinked rapidly to focus her eyes, the room coming into view once again. 

She sat in front of a white-painted wooden desk that looked uncomfortably like the one in her own bedroom at home, and she realized with a sinking feeling that the computer sitting on it was her own laptop. He slid her chair in closer to the desk, adjusting its height slightly before opening the computer and pressing the power button. It took a moment for it to turn on, but once it did the familiar log-in screen appeared to prompt her for her password.

“I thought you might be more comfortable writing on your own computer,” he said, smiling down at her as she looked hesitantly up at him over her shoulder. He looked expectantly down at her, and she looked away quickly to occupy herself with quickly entering her password and hitting the enter key. Her laptop welcomed her cheerfully, and Nathaniel let out a low whistle as if in awe.

“I’m honestly amazed that you can remember a password that long,” he remarked, stroking her hair for a moment. She cringed away from his touch, and he patted her shoulder briefly. “I shall leave you to your work; I have things that I need to attend to, but one of my men will be up shortly to keep an eye on you.” He paused, then chuckled softly. “I don’t imagine you’ll be running off in the meantime.” She grimaced at the thought, looking up at him again briefly as he crossed the room, heading for the door. She remembered suddenly, with a sharp jolt of adrenalin that she was still naked.

“D…doctor?” she blurted out, reluctantly; he turned back to face her, raising one eyebrow questioningly. “C…could…” she began, before she had to pause to swallow nervously. “….um. Could I have a blanket? I…g-get cold easily.” He smirked, giving a little snort of laughter before he answered.

“This particular room is quite warm, my dear. I’m sure you’ll be fine. If you’re worried about the guard I send up…taking liberties with your person, there’s no need to be concerned. There are cameras in here, and I am positive that no one wants to be caught on tape directly disobeying my orders about not touching you without permission.” She shuddered at the thought; if his response to her own disobedience was any indication, she couldn’t imagine anyone willing to cross him. 

He exited the room without another word, leaving her alone for the first time since she had been brought there. She looked around briefly, but other than the desk and the chair she sat in, the only other thing in the room was a chair behind her, in the back left corner of the room. She hesitated for as long as she dared before finally, reluctantly, opening a new Word document. She flexed her fingers briefly, tapping the keys lightly without typing anything before closing her eyes for a moment. She took a long breath in, then let it out slowly, opening her eyes again and beginning to type. 

It all happened so fast…


End file.
